What I’m reading: everything, pretty much.

Do you ever get the sudden rush of horror and despair when you think about how many books there are in the world (at least, in languages you can read), and how little time you have to read them?

I’ve been experiencing a bit of that lately. Just a bit. *stares blankly at wall*

Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress, #1)I’m halfway-ish through the final book in the Wheel of Time series. I’ve let it sit in the backburner of my kindle because after racing through thirteen other books I don’t really want to be finished with it. It’s not really the type of series I’m likely to ever reread, so I guess I’m trying to keep the world alive in my mind.

I’ve kinda gottten sucked into Jeaniene Frost’s Night Huntress series, which is a testament to how entertaining they are, because I am SO very over vampires. But these books are like a rocket, you get sped through these stories and are kinda hooked. Like the (good) action movie equivalent of urban fantasy.

Succubus Blues (Georgina Kincaid, #1)I’ve been reading other series too, but so quickly I haven’t had the wherewithal to review the books individually. Richelle Mead’s Georgina Kincaid series is six books long, and I tore through them. I doubt I’ll ever get around to reviewing them, so I’ll just say that I enjoyed the world she crafted, even though Georgina being a succubus kind of sank the character into the hot-girl-at-whom-all-male-characters-throw-themselves territory. I’m not such a huge fan of this, but I enjoyed the story, which is very romance heavy. Shrug. It was pretty good anyway.

Unholy Ghosts (Downside Ghosts, #1)I also started Stacia Kane’s Downside Ghosts series. I’m on the latest right now. This series is really interesting! It’s set in this sort of dystopic future society where ghosts are murderous and are held in captivity in the City of Eternity by the Church, whose motto is “Facts are Truth.” Cesaria “Chess” Putnam, the protagonist, is a drug addict with an insanely depressing past. She’s a weird anti-heroine that isn’t really that hard to like. I love the gritty aspect of the setting, a look into an addict character like Chess’s mind, and the slang Kane uses, which other reviewers have noted is actually brilliant in that it’s not racist. It’s also kind of infectious. Bump (a pimp/drug dealer) is probably the most entertaining dialogue to read. He uses the eff word with true artistry.

The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real MagicHmm, what else? I read a book called The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic which I adored. I think I should definitely review that in depth. (I just checked Emily Croy Barker’s Twitter account and she’s working on a sequel. YAAAASSSSS)

That’s all really, right now. I’ve been really busy this last week and kind of burned out on reading, but that’s usually temporary. I’m thinking about getting back into more contemporary general fiction and literary fiction. I’ve been glutting myself on fantasy books to cleanse my mind palette, but I’m starting to feel as if my standards are being lowered by popular fiction. I’m open to book suggestions, although I have a stack of to-read books on my night stand that nearly reaches from the floor to my hip…maybe after the new year.

What have you been reading?

Review: A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy, #1) by Deborah Harkness

A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy, #1)A Discovery of Witches
by Deborah Harkness
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Published 2011 by Viking Penguin
ISBN 0670022411

A richly inventive novel about a centuries-old vampire, a spellbound witch, and the mysterious manuscript that draws them together.

Deep in the stacks of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell.

Debut novelist Deborah Harkness has crafted a mesmerizing and addictive read, equal parts history and magic, romance and suspense. Diana is a bold heroine who meets her equal in vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont, and gradually warms up to him as their alliance deepens into an intimacy that violates age-old taboos. This smart, sophisticated story harks back to the novels of Anne Rice, but it is as contemporary and sensual as the Twilight series-with an extra serving of historical realism.

This book had a LOT of problems. Really kind of troubling problems. I liked it anyway. Sit down, I’ll tell you why.

I’ll start with what I loved with this book: the settings were excellent. I love coming to know a place through a book. I’ve never been to Oxford but I think I caught a sliver of it through the narrative. I loved the academic parts of it, and I loved that I learned things about history from it. I always enjoy picking up tidbits of practical knowledge from fiction. The premise of the book was interesting. And here is where we run into my issues.

This book is disturbingly like Twilight. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Twilight, despite my better judgment and its many flaws, but this book is supposed to be a book about a witch and her personal struggle against fate, or the underground political struggles between the supernatural races. This would have worked out in a really interesting way if not for one thing: homegirl falls in love with a vampire.

There is something about [male] vampires in urban fantasy acquiring the power to utterly ruin any story the minute the heroine falls for them. It doesn’t happen every time, see Sunshine or Rachel Morgan, but it seems to tap into this dark well of perverse desire to be absorbed entirely into someone else’s life in certain authors of certain books. The relationship turns into this black hole that seems to swallow everything else. Granted, relationships often do, but you can’t realistically let your life be subsumed into that of a really old dead guy when you are just beginning your own journey of self discovery without your readers thinking you’ve lost your damn mind. Which is pretty much what happens here.

Luckily this guy is ptherwise pretty interesting and you get to go to France and find out a buncha stuff. But the original plotlines suffer for this.

Don’t even get me STARTED ranting about the whole alpha male/pack business. We get it, vampires are animalistic. Let’s just go ahead and disregard all feminist social progress. Because he just can’t help himself. EYE ROLL

I really enjoy reading books about witches. Unfortunately, this book was almost entirely hijacked by vampires from the beginning. I really would have liked to learn more about Diana’s parents and her Bishop lineage. I would DEFINITELY liked to learn more about daemons. Not the secrety things, just more about what they are like and what differentiates them from…well, mentally gifted and disturbed humans. Because aside from being savants, I can’t pinpoint a single thing.

All in all, a good/ruthless editor with a scalpel and an aversion to vampire hijacking would have done this book a world of good. It was about a hundred, maybe two hundred pages longer than I expected it to be (ebook), and about the same length stretched out/overwritten. Despite all of my issues and opinions to the contrary, I did really enjoy this book and can’t wait to read the next one.

I know. I’m hopeless.

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Review: The Restorer (Graveyard Queen, #1) by Amanda Stevens

The Restorer (Graveyard Queen, #1)The Restorer
by Amanda Stevens
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Published April 19th 2011 by Mira
ISBN13 9780778329817

  

My name is Amelia Gray. I’m a cemetery restorer who sees ghosts. In order to protect myself from the parasitic nature of the dead, I’ve always held fast to the rules passed down from my father. But now a haunted police detective has entered my world and everything is changing, including the rules that have always kept me safe.It started with the discovery of a young woman’s brutalized body in an old Charleston graveyard I’ve been hired to restore. The clues to the killer—and to his other victims—lie in the headstone symbolism that only I can interpret. Devlin needs my help, but his ghosts shadow his every move, feeding off his warmth, sustaining their presence with his energy. To warn him would be to invite them into my life. I’ve vowed to keep my distance, but the pull of his magnetism grows ever stronger even as the symbols lead me closer to the killer and to the gossamer veil that separates this world from the next.

I really wanted to like this book more. It has all of the ingredients to bake up into a beautiful cupcake of favorite book, for me anyway. Ghosts, Charleston, NC, hot guys, murder. The reason the first half of the book took me forever to get through (or at least it felt like an eternity) was due to the style of the writing.

This is SO unlike me to say, but the narration style was overdone. It was too…stylized, too over-written. No one thinks in such a flowery, erudite way. But people sure do write that way. I’m sure I’ve got pages and pages of abandoned writing that read exactly the way the beginning of The Restorer does.

It’s too bad, really, because what was shooting to be beautifully written, almost literature, wayyyy overshot, but had atmosphere and intrigue. Luckily it eventually did get better. That or I just got used to it.

Amelia Gray isn’t a very interesting or well fleshed out character (I can tell you exactly one thing about her personality: that she’s reserved) but her circumstances make up for it. Lots of stuff happens to her. Interesting stuff. And all of the information about graveyards is fascinating!

Definitely a good summer read, with lots of ghosts and southern gothic settings. My cup of tea, mostly.

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Advance review: Elysian Fields (Sentinels of New Orleans #3) by Suzanne Johnson

Elysian Fields (Sentinels of New Orleans, #3)Elysian Fields
by Suzanne Johnson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Expected publication: August 13th 2013 by Tor Books 

ISBN0765333198

An undead serial killer comes for DJ in this thrilling third installment of Suzanne Johnson’s Sentinels of New Orleans series.

The mer feud has been settled, but life in South Louisiana still has more twists and turns than the muddy Mississippi.

New Orleanians are under attack from a copycat killer mimicking the crimes of a 1918 serial murderer known as the Axeman of New Orleans. Thanks to a tip from the undead pirate Jean Lafitte, DJ Jaco knows the attacks aren’t random—an unknown necromancer has resurrected the original Axeman of New Orleans, and his ultimate target is a certain blonde wizard. Namely, DJ.

Combatting an undead serial killer as troubles pile up around her isn’t easy. Jake Warin’s loup-garou nature is spiraling downward, enigmatic neighbor Quince Randolph is acting weirder than ever, the Elders are insisting on lessons in elven magic from the world’s most annoying wizard, and former partner Alex Warin just turned up on DJ’s to-do list. Not to mention big maneuvers are afoot in the halls of preternatural power.

Suddenly, moving to the Beyond as Jean Lafitte’s pirate wench could be DJ’s best option.

I started reading the Sentinels of New Orleans series in my desperate quest to tide myself over before the new Alex Craft and Kate Daniels books come out at the beginning of August and end of July, respectively. I’ve mentioned before that the southern setting is a big draw for me, and N’awlins seemed like a great place for a paranormal urban fantasy. It is really fun to get to know the city and its legends and night spots through these books.

Royal Street, the first book in the series, introduces the heroine, deputy Sentinel Drusilla Jaco (call her DJ or she will pummel you), a minor wizard living in New Orleans right before Hurricane Katrina hits. Her mentor, Gerry, goes missing, her city is devastated, and it’s up to her to make it right. With a new partner foisted on her – one who just happens to be extremely hot, the story and setting are interesting. The second book is even better, even though the narrative jumps forward two years and all of the characters’ relationships…don’t.

Now we skip to THIS book, which albeit is an ARC (I love NetGalley), so there might still be some changes that show up in the finished copy, but from what I read, either my memory is awful or Suzanne Johnson’s writing style and editor changed. Dramatically.

Don’t get me wrong, the story is still great. You’ll be hooked. It’s a page turner, and that’s exactly why I have a problem with it. The chapters feel truncated and stilted. DJ ends the narration of a chapter in a punchy, dramatic way, and then picks up at the start of the next chapter with an entirely different temporal subject. It’s hours or days later, and the cliff-hanger of the previous chapter gets resolved in a quick, past-tense aside. Not gonna lie, I felt cheated. I would almost ALWAYS rather “see” how an altercation or issue gets resolved than be told. It starts to be less jarring toward the middle of the book, but that also may be because I became accustomed to it.

All in all, decent read, I will definitely pick up the next in the series when it comes out next year, and I will go down with my ‘ship. There are like a bajillion (3) absurdly attractive guys in this series vying for DJ’s attention and Johnson is being VERY clever with these relationship plot twists, that clever boots. Pirates and shifters and elves, oh my. Though it’s kind of a dead giveaway which one is meant to win out, he’s the only one who hasn’t done something jaw droppingly awful to DJ in the past two books, so it’s hard to root for anyone else.

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What I’m reading: Not dead!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin Hey y’all. I’ve been AWOL the last few months but I have been reading. A lot. Too much, some might say (We don’t listen to those voices, though, remember that).

I’m still rolling along through Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I’m on book 8, and BOY are these books long! This is coming from a huge fan of the ASOIAF series (Game of Thrones, for the uninitiated). So much book. I’m pretty invested at this point, so I’ll probably see them through.

Everything else has fallen by the wayside, though, in the face of these behemoths. I have several ebooks on deck, including some I’ve looked forward to for a while, like the latest Sookie Stackhouse novel. Shut up, you. I love them.

Anyway I just wanted to check in, say hello. Point to the title (kind of not a funny joke when you have depression, but people like morbid humor right? No? Well, too bad I DID IT).

Truthfully, I prefer designing* blog pages more than I like actually blogging, but luckily for DEP (one letter away from DERP) I like talking about the books I read a lot too. There is war in my soul. Fear not gentle readers. And my stepdad. (Hi, John. Remind me to bring you that book when I come over on Saturday.)

What are your summer reads so far?

*ratchet web design involves a lot of googling for tutorials and using MSPaint. Yup, Paint still exists.

What I’m reading: long awaited releases.

I love book series, but the wait between installments can be a killer, as any George R. R. Martin fan can attest. Sometimes I get distracted and forget about the books I am waiting impatiently to read, and the publication date sneaks up on me, as was the case with Maureen Johnson’s The Madness Underneath and Cassandra Clare’s Clockwork Princess.

Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3)I am on the fence about reviewing Clockwork Princess because a) it’s the end of a series and b) I still have too many feels to really write a decent review. I definitely recommend both, though! TMU is a ghost thriller kinda, set in London, which I reviewed here, and CP2 (the 2 is because the middle book in the trilogy, Clockwork Prince is CP) is a steampunk take on Clare’s The Mortal Instruments, which I definitely enjoy. The movie is coming out in August, and the cast is phenomenal, they’ve got Lily Collins, Jamie Campbell-Bower, Lena Headey (Cersei from “Game of Thrones” Queen Gorgo in 300!), Aidan Turner (uber hot vamp Mitchell in the UK “Being Human” show) and Robert Sheehan (Misfits). I die.

Other than that, I’ve been slowly chewing through Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files series, which is decent, thus far. I mean, they’re about a wizard named Harry, so. A grown-up one, in this case. I can’t say I really love them—Harry Dresden is sexist in a way that I assume is supposed to be endearing. There are a lot of female characters, though, and they’re not entirely flat. In fact, Harry gets saved by them on occasion. But it’s still kind of grating to be inside of a character’s head when you would probably want to verbally eviscerate them in reality.

Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying Your Life by Reducing Your WasteI’ve also started reading Bea Johnson from The Zero Waste Home‘s upcoming book. I’ve loved her blog for years, since I read an article in Sunset Magazine. I was undergoing a bit of doubt about my personal commitment to reducing my environmental impact, and seeing that another person, another family, had felt the same way and really DONE something about it changed my life. The book is great so far, and I can’t wait to review it here and on my eco/lifestyle blog, Project Pura Vida.

What are you reading lately? Are you, like, me, avoiding your course materials?

The Nightmare Affair (The Arkwell Academy #1) by Mindee Arnett

The Nightmare Affair (The Arkwell Academy, #1)The Nightmare Affair
by Mindee Arnett
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Published March 5th 2013 by Tor Teen
ISBN 0765333333

Sixteen-year-old Dusty Everhart breaks into houses late at night, but not because she’s a criminal. No, she’s a Nightmare.

Literally.

Being the only Nightmare at Arkwell Academy, a boarding school for magickind, and living in the shadow of her mother’s infamy, is hard enough. But when Dusty sneaks into Eli Booker’s house, things get a whole lot more complicated. He’s hot, which means sitting on his chest and invading his dreams couldn’t get much more embarrassing. But it does. Eli is dreaming of a murder.

Then Eli’s dream comes true.

Now Dusty has to follow the clues—both within Eli’s dreams and out of them—to stop the killer before more people turn up dead. And before the killer learns what she’s up to and marks her as the next target.

The blurb for this book really did it for me. Personifying nightmares? Awkward chest sitting? A magical academy? Sign me up!

No, really, sign me up—I never got a Hogwarts letter.

After reading the blurb and receiving the ARC from Tor Teen via NetGalley, I wish I had better news to report. I did like a lot of things about the book—I just wish I had liked them more.

Dusty is an outcast at Arkwell Academy, thus you get some unpopular-girl vs. The Cool Kids dynamics, which I didn’t find 100% convincing, mostly because I’ve never witnessed such blatant bullying before in school. The Draco-Malfoy-loudly-mocking-Harry-at-mealtimes thing never seemed plausible to me, because I’ve never witnessed a bully so secure at the top of the food chain that someone wouldn’t call them out, eventually. I’m no authority on bullies, though, despite my extensive public school resume (10 different occasions of being the new kid). Maybe it’s a private school thing?

Speaking of schools, Arkwell Academy is such a great draw toward this book. The idea of a Nightmare personified is way cool, and when you add in her magical secret high school that teaches witches, fairies, sirens, demons, and, yes, Nightmares, to do magic had me really excited. I found myself feeling a little deprived mid-book—I wish Arnett had gone into a bit more detail about the different students and their magic, maybe a couple more characters, and more depth to the cast we got to meet. The characters all seem to be smart and intrepid, but disproportionally emotionally immature. I think getting to see more of them, dialogue and action, in future books could definitely even this out.

In addition, the political structure of the magical world is referenced several times, and the reader isn’t ever given a first hand perspective into how it operates and how Dusty understands it. Give me more! Politics send a lot of people to sleep, but throw in some fantasy characters and history and they can be made really compelling.

All-in-all, The Nightmare Affair is a fast read with enough fresh spin on a collection of tropes to make it palatable. I could criticize it some more, but I think it’s a book a younger teen (12-14) might really enjoy. A fresh pair of eyes could really get stuck on elements that seem tired and over-done to a reader like me. And it’s got that little bit of boarding school story appeal that never seems to get old.

View all my reviews | Buy this book on Amazon.com

Reviewed: The Madness Underneath (Shades of London, #2) by Maureen Johnson

The Madness Underneath (Shades of London, #2)The Madness Underneath
 by Maureen Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Published February 26th 2013 by Putnam Juvenile
ISBN 1101607831

After her near-fatal run-in with the Jack the Ripper copycat, Rory Devereaux has been living in Bristol under the close watch of her parents. So when her therapist suddenly suggests she return to Wexford, Rory jumps at the chance to get back to her friends. But Rory’s brush with the Ripper touched her more than she thought possible: she’s become a human terminus, with the power to eliminate ghosts on contact. She soon finds out that the Shades–the city’s secret ghost-fighting police–are responsible for her return. The Ripper may be gone, but now there is a string of new inexplicable deaths threatening London. Rory has evidence that the deaths are no coincidence. Something much more sinister is going on, and now she must convince the squad to listen to her before it’s too late.
In this follow-up to the Edgar Award-nominated THE NAME OF THE STAR, Maureen Johnson adds another layer of spectacularly gruesome details to the streets of London that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end.
—from Goodreads

I honestly feel there is no way to write a review on this book without referring to THE THING which is very spoiler-y, but I am going to try.

The Madness Underneath is the sequel to Johnson’s 2011 The Name of the Star, which was very good! The Madness Underneath was good, but not quite as good as the first, which was about a copycat Jack the Ripper murderer in present-day London — lots of history, mystery, and thrills. And ghosts!

I definitely recommend you pick up a copy of the first book! Though, having read the sequel so long after reading The Name of the Star, I was a little fuzzy on the details, and I was too impatient to re-read before starting this book, so I can say with relative certainty that it can stand alone.

Overall the story was decent, though the characterization was a bit weaker than the first book, which is odd, because the focus was placed more so on the characters’ inner struggles than the actual crime/mystery. I think this is the only aspect of the story that was lacking. Maureen Johnson did a really very excellent job writing Rory’s PTSD (if it was that) and anxiety. Having gone through a similar bout of anxieties about school (without any paranormal fatal injury), I was able to connect with the character very well, almost to the point where it was painful to read. This was personal, but I think any reader will be able to really get in her head.

So if you like ghosts and a really strong sense of setting (way to make me want to move to London, MJ, the weather is HORRIBLE there), I definitely recommend this series. Hopefully Book 3 will be even better!

View all my reviews | Buy The Madness Underneath on Amazon

Emilie and the Hollow World by Martha Wells

Emilie and the Hollow WorldEmilie and the Hollow World
by Martha Wells
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Expected publication: April 2nd 2013 by Strange Chemistry
ISBN 1908844493
 

While running away from home for reasons that are eminently defensible, Emilie’s plans to stow away on the steamship Merry Bell and reach her cousin in the big city go awry, landing her on the wrong ship and at the beginning of a fantastic adventure. Taken under the protection of Lady Marlende, Emilie learns that the crew hopes to use the aether currents and an experimental engine, and with the assistance of Lord Engal, journey to the interior of the planet in search of Marlende’s missing father. With the ship damaged on arrival, they attempt to traverse the strange lands on their quest. But when evidence points to sabotage and they encounter the treacherous Lord Ivers, along with the strange race of the sea-lands, Emilie has to make some challenging decisions and take daring action if they are ever to reach the surface world again.  —from Goodreads.

I’ve never read a book by Martha Wells before, and generally Journey to the Center of the Earth-type novels aren’t my cup of tea, probably because mole-people don’t interest me and I have an aversion to the dark. Emilie and the Hollow World sounded just different enough to be intriguing.

That said, after I received the ARC from Angry Robot on NetGalley, it took me forever to start reading, which I regret, because I really liked it! However, I was a bit prejudiced, given the YA marketing & cover design, and I thought, going in, this book was probably going to be quite fluffy. Well, I overestimated the fluff (minimal) and underestimated (or misread) the age of the protagonist, Emilie. I read the first few pages assuming she was a plucky 11 or 12 year old — not so. Emilie is 16, and further, some of the elements of her backstory (and of the beginning of the sequel if there will be one) are more northward in the YA spectrum than an 11 year old character might have. But only slightly. One or two degrees northward. Still appropriate and not at all shocking for any middle-grade fiction reader. So despite being even older than the intended audience than I’d expected to be, I still enjoyed the story.

Very steampunk, great world-building (in an aquatic way, a personal favorite), and likeable characters, especially Emilie and Miss Marlende. Sort of like the child protégé of Gail Carriger’s Alexia Tarabotti, though much less prim and chatty. I also quite liked how Wells describes the non-human characters.

 I would recommend this book to middle-grade readers and older who like steampunk, The Swiss Family Robinson (do kids still read that?), Robinson Crusoe, Disney’s “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” (this especially! A favorite of mine), and Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan series.

 View all my reviews | Buy or pre-order on Amazon

p.s. I went back and read some reviews on The Swiss Family Robinson and I am completely unsurprised to find out how much many adults hate it. I’m glad I read it and saw the movie as a child. I remember really liking it, but given all the criticism about how much senseless animal shooting goes on, maybe it makes sense I grew up to be a vegetarian.

The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper (finally) reviewed.

The DemonologistThe Demonologist
by Andrew Pyper
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Published March 5th 2013 by Simon & Schuster

ISBN: 1451697414

Professor David Ullman’s expertise in the literature of the demonic—notably Milton’s Paradise Lost—has won him wide acclaim. But David is not a believer.

One afternoon he receives a visitor at his campus office, a strikingly thin woman who offers him an invitation: travel to Venice, Italy, witness a “phenomenon,” and offer his professional opinion, in return for an extravagant sum of money. Needing a fresh start, David accepts and heads to Italy with his beloved twelve-year-old daughter Tess.

What happens in Venice will send David on an unimaginable journey from skeptic to true believer, as he opens himself up to the possibility that demons really do exist. In a terrifying quest guided by symbols and riddles from the pages of Paradise Lost, David attempts to rescue his daughter from the Unnamed—a demonic entity that has chosen him as its messenger. –from Goodreads

The UK cover. Much prettier, non?

I want to clarify that though I gave this book 3 stars I didn’t like it. It was just written well enough that to rate it lower would have been spiteful.

David Ullman is a professor at Columbia University. He has a strong friendship with colleague and psychologist Elaine O’Brien, but is otherwise a solitary man. His marriage is ending, and his wife has been cheating on him with yet another Columbia prof. His relationship with his preteen daughter Tess is the best thing he’s got at the opening of the novel. Unfortunately, through a series of uncanny events that lead to an impromptu trip to Venice sponsored by a mysterious employer, Tess is taken from him. David is willing to do anything to get her back, up to and including striding into Hell.

Now, the first thing that must be said is that The Demonologist takes itself pretty seriously. It is written about a university professor of literature by what sounds like an academic, probably a university professor of literature — or a writer trying very hard to sound like one. Pyper gets points there.

The story has thrilling, introspective and scary moments. On two separate occasions I was chilled, though this is not saying much, I am easily scared. I can’t even read the Bible without getting freaked out. Unfortunately for me, quotes from Milton and Revelations make up a substantial amount of the dialogue, and are the fulcrums on which the plot turns. This is both positive, as it fits in the academic narrator framework, and negative, as the relation between the quotation-clues seems arbitrary, though the quotations themselves are familiar.

Despite that, in a way, it all does work. The basis of the supernatural element of this work is that maybe all of the stories of angels and demons and denizens of hell are true, and the mind is a space — the ultimate battleground for humanity. What separates the sane and good from the morally compromised and possessed is the belief. Once you’ve gotten this and suspended reality, you are taken on quite a ride. Pyper’s David Ullman totally pulls this off.

Unfortunately for my opinion of the book, and this review, this wasn’t enough to win me over. For a book that takes itself as seriously as The Demonologist does, the number of tired tropes motivating the narration are just lazy. A cuckolded academic chosen to be the cosmic harbinger of demonic existence? A damsel in distress, and not only that, but also a child-like Eurydice? (The Orpheus/Eurydice trope is referenced in the text, but STILL). A terminally ill woman who has nothing more important to her in her final weeks than to join a seemingly insane friend on a cross country wild goose chase?

The jacket of the ARC I was reading (won through a FirstReads giveaway) said the book is in development for a movie. Well, it did read a lot like a screenplay at times. Not in a bad way. It was what it was.

Altogether, I think this is a book most readers will enjoy. I can’t say it wasn’t an engrossing read. If you’re not nitpicky, and can stomach the description of women (albeit dead women) being beaten, and a general lack of character development for them, well, have at it. Just read it during the day.

p.s. Click here to see the spoilers I removed in the full review on Goodreads, if you’re into that.