Chaos Unleashed (Chaos Rises #2) by Pippa DaCosta

Gamma, half demon, raised in a lab by humans to hunt down and destroy demons, needs allies to rescue her brother

And there can be no greater ally than the Demon Prince of Pride. If you can trust a Demon Prince. And the irony of the Demon Hunter allying with the Demon Prince isn’t lost on her

Gem has a goal - but does she even know what she wants? Or who she can trust?

This book series has a fun world (and this book overtly links Pippa DaCosta’s two worlds)  with demon princes and an array of different demons: from various lesser demons that are animalistic through to a range of elementals. We have half demons, a demonically scarred real world reeling from a major demonic incursion and lots of magic, battles and exploration

It’s an excellent world. The parts of the world lost to demonic power and incursion, demons trying to find their place in the world of humanity or in these little demonic lands. And even the animalistic demons are interesting in their differences and how they are used

But we don’t explore all that much of them. Oh we use a fair bit of it to explore magic and powers and, like the previous book, there is an ongoing sense that there’s a whole lot more to this world than I get to see (I like the merging of the book series because it adds a lot more weight and context to this world building. Argh I like this world but give me more!) but I have to concede that isn’t the point of this book

This book is all about identity - who people are and what they want to be. Oh we have an excellent plot with great conflicts, some interesting relationships and loyalties and some really really really nifty fight and action scenes.

But identity is the core here. Obviously we have Gem herself, the demon, the weapon created by the Institute, the human… something more? She struggles back and forth between human feelings, demonic violence the weapon’s hatred of all things demonic. And this constantly makes her doubt who she is, what she wants and even what feelings are real

There’s her brother Delta, and what is he to her? Can she see him for what he is, what their relationship actually is - can she see past what she wants him to be?

Around her is Torrent, another half demon who has the same demon/human conflict but also his own battle over what he wants to be. How will he grow, which will he preserve - what actually matters to him the most. And can you decide to be something you’re actually not because you value this identity so much?

Devil May Care (Veil #2) by Pippa DaCosta

e

Muse is a half-demon – though her demon half is restrained by the Institute as they use her to police the supernatural world bleeding over into the city

But several Enforcers have been brutally murdered and butchered – and reading the metal confirms the worse: her owner, Damian, has returned. She is not the old demon she was, with the powers now at her disposal promising for a very different showdown. At the same time, Akil, ex-demon Prince is hoping that that same power may elevate him back to his title

And she may co-operate – as he may be the only one who can help her save Stefan from his imprisonment in the Netherworld.

I think the best thing about this book is how Muse has grown and changed and moved. The last book very much looked at her past; how she had been brutally abused and her trying to find herself and pull herself from that mindset. There was the conflict if her realising her saviour was nothing of the kind and the different ways you can be used an abused but different forces.

This book continues on from that – Muse is much more confident in who she is and the newfound power she wields. She’s suspicious, warier and almost comes across as snotty in a Keille Independence, Rebel without a clue kind of way. But it works when we look at her context and her past. Muse is very determined not to give the impression of subservience even to the people around her. Not that she’s completely free from her past – there’s an excellent depiction of how the trauma is still haunting her. The horror of her memories catching up with her, how she desperately tries to resist them haunting her. She’s scarred by her past but it isn’t the entirety of her life. She acknowledges her past, her self-disgust and her internalising the idea she is weak and helpless. It also does weaken her – because trauma isn’t something that is easily cast off in an awesome empowerment moment

I really like how this is balanced with Muse – her moving away from trauma but still haunted by it. Determined not to be defined by it but not escaping it just because she wants to – it doesn’t just magically vanish.

This feeds well with her relationship with the Institute and their desire to use her while still half fearing and loathing her for what she is

There is a good little examination of both her and Stefan and the organisation that is both exploiting them for their demonic abilities while at the same time restraining them and treating them as inherently dangerous or tainted because of them. It’s a well balanced depiction of exploitation and both needing someone and fearing them. Similarly we see this with the wariness of her colleagues who, at the same time, definitely rely on her expertise.

Her relationship with Akil also continues to be complicated. He does try to use her and exploit her strength and it comes from a very demonic place. He seems to care for her, but simply doesn’t have the compassion or empathy of a human. Again, it’s a decent balance of both showing he cares for Muse, while also trying to use her and while also showing that even with that human emotion there’s a huge amount of alienness there. Unsurprisingly, Muse herself is also really suspicious of him – and I, again, like the balance here of both being willing to work with him (not out of helplessness entirely, but out of confidence and even a willingness to look at him as an equal rather than a superior) while constantly being suspicious of his motive.

Hidden Blade (Soul Easter Series #1) by Pippa DaCosta

Ace, the nameless one, the Soul Eater, is cursed and enslaved. Banished from Duat, bound to his duty on Earth serving his master and reluctantly linked to a woman who mocks him every day with her presence, he doesn’t have a happy life. The one thing he does want to do is avoid the gods however he can

But when Bastet comes back into his life things get a little more complicated. Not least because she’s his ex-wife

Egyptian gods! Anyone who has been reading Fangs for any length of time knows we love ourselves some good mythology and, surprisingly, the Egyptians are oddly uncommon in the genre, I’ve found. Which is a shame because I’d love to dive into an Egyptian story

And here we have the Egyptian gods in a modern world setting along with a fun, action packed story. And I do really like the plot, the action is extremely well paced but it doesn’t consume the book to the point where it feels like there is no plot as can sometimes happen. I like the characters and their interactions, their complexities and temptations, their histories and difficulties. They work really well together and with the world they’re involved in.

But I find myself somewhat disappointed by that huge potential not especially being examined. What excited me about this was Egyptian gods in the modern world – that would have been exciting and interesting and deep and we could bring in lots of excellent mythology. But… we didn’t really see the Egyptian gods. Oh, Osiris and Isis are there – but they’re just mighty powerful evil people. You could have changed their names to be anything or anyone, they could be powerful mages, fallen angels, pretty much anything which is kind of depressing. There was no sense to me of them being actually Osiris or Isis. They were just the big powerful antagonists the culture, the history, the resonance behind what they are is missing

On top of that, I really dislike how Isis is portrayed – conniving and manipulative? I could accept that even if it is beneath Isis (the paragon wife and mother, the mother goddess, goddess of artisans and maidens and so much more) – but to have her sexually shamed – to have Osiris happily . To demonise her both through her sexuality (and her bisexuality for extra unpleasant tropiness) and using that sexuality as a classic marker of evil/depravity/immorality/corruption would be generally gross with any female antagonist – but to decide to do this with the actual lore around Isis and what she could have been just seems to add totally wasted opportunity on top of an utterly tired trope.

Chaos Rises (Chaos Rises #1) by Pippa DaCosta

Gem and her brother Del are half-demons – which is a difficult in the world after the demon invasion. Humans want to destroy or imprison them. Full demons want to enslave them. Gem and Del have made terrible decisions to keep the safe.

And now Del has disappeared – and Gem is faced with another set of terrible choices and thin hopes to save her brother – but her demonic master is the only one who seems to know what is happening even though she knows she cannot trust him and he has his own sinister agenda

This is a semi-dystopian world where the population is recovering from the aftermath of a (possibly brief) demonic invasion. It doesn’t seem to be too different from out world – but there are demonic zones and creatures lurking around

This leaves the demons still on Earth both as creatures to be feared and also creatures that are targeted by humanity from what I can see. While the demons themselves have complex powers, their own culture and their own history

This is one of the few occasions where I actually say I need more world building info! It’s common for initial books in a series to dump too much information in. But this world is big, it has history, we have the demons before the veil, the veil collapsing, this apparently leaving demonic places on earth. We have the elements, we have courts and demon kings and queens and princes, we have lesser demons. We have the half-demons, we have the Institute. A lot of this has history and world building implications which isn’t just good for my nosy, world-building loving self, but it would also really help understand what is going on, understand these characters, understand them and how they relate to the world. I neeeeeed more

Wings of Hope (The Veil Series #0.5) by Pippa DaCosta

Muse was a slave to her full demon master, cursed and derided like all half-blood demons, she seem to have no way to freedom and nowhere to go.

Until she meets Mammon, the Prince of Greed who shows her a new way when he demands three nights with her.

This book is well written, dramatic, very well paced and with some very powerful emotional, impactful contact. The story showed us some of the demon world, the elementals, their powers and their council.

It was very dramatic and very stark which graphically depicted Muse’s horrendous past without pulling any punches or trying to romanticise any of it.

My only issue with this book is that I’m not sure what the point of it is? I mean, we know Muses’s history from Beyond the Veil, we know she was a half-demon who was enslaved. We know she was abused and tortured. We know she was raped and tormented and we know that she was passed from one demon to the other.

We were already told all this. And while I’m generally a fan of show-don’t-tell, I’m not entirely sure what is gained from telling and then showing. Especially when the showing depicts graphic abuse and torture and rape.

I don’t think there’s anything this story brings that hasn’t always been told. In some ways that fits with what I want from short stories – I don’t want them to be compulsory. But I also want there to be some point – and that goes doubly for any book that is this graphic. If there is going to be a depiction of such terrible abuse then I really would like to see a powerful depiction of why this is being shown and I didn’t see it here.

Of course, the abuse storyline does, ultimately, end with glorious strength and violence and vengeance. But, again, we already knew that – so why show it again? We know about the scars, so why show the wounds?

Beyond the Veil (The Veil Series #1) by Pippa DaCosta

Muse has spent the last 5 years playing human, hiding her true nature as a half-demon. Reviled and enslaved by her own card, she clings to the façade of humanity as long as she can

Then a half-demon assassin visits her shop which promptly explodes. Apparently on someone’s hit list she has only one choice – to turn to her previous saviour, Akil, the Prince of Greed.

I liked this story – it had an interesting world setting of demons in the human world, demons hiding and semi-known to humanity but not quite to the full extent. We have Muse, the half demon, reviled and enslaved in demonic society and trying to find her own place in a world when she doesn’t fit among humanity or demons but needs both.

Muse’s story wonderfully reflects this conflict. She needs to be sheltered from the demons which can only happen with demonic protection. There are humans who will oppose the demons – but they so utterly revile demons that they hate her as well. She needs to control her demonic half which is so capable of destruction but at the same time cannot live without it. So many conflicts make for a good character despite the romance that I am not a fan of. No, really, I can’t stress how much the insta-love zomg-he’s-so-hot-this-overrules-everything is completely unneeded for this book

And there’s Stefan and Akil – both love interests and both with very shadowy and twisty motives. But Muse simply cannot refuse to trust them because she cannot survive alone

I do like the way the story examines ownership, slavery and freedom. Muse has been “rescued” from a master – a cruel and abusive master. But if your new master, no matter how kind and benevolent, still demands your attention and obedience then how free are you? A benevolent master is still a master, a kind owner still an owner. Especially if that “kindness” only extends as far as that obedience.

Unfortunately this book is fairly lacking when it comes to marginalised characters. Muse herself is quite a strong character – she has special powers (but not special enough to be a Mary Sue), she’s powerful (but not so much more powerful than the rest of her species to make her a special snowflake) and while she has anger issues like many Urban fantasy protagonists (who mistake poor anger management for strength) she is largely in control and her anger is always presented in a reasonable format drawing upon her actual experiences and history of abuse. And, yes, like so many Urban Fantast protagonists she does have a terrible, abusive history. But it isn’t tacked on or forced or convoluted or used for random characterisation without purpose (as is so often the case). Her terrible history is an integral part of both her story and her world setting: it carries a lot of the same clichés but there’s an effort to make these clichés work and be real parts of these characters and this world setting. Cliched but reasoned clichés. Cliches with some effort behind them.