Review: The Demon Lover by Juliet Dark

Once upon a time, there was a mysterious old house on the edge of a dark, dangerous forest…

But first, the Blurb: Since accepting a teaching position at remote Fairwick College in upstate New York, Callie McFay has experienced the same disturbingly erotic dream every night: A mist enters her bedroom, then takes the shape of a virile, seductive stranger who proceeds to ravish her in the most toe-curling, wholly satisfying ways possible. Perhaps these dreams are the result of writing her bestselling book, The Sex Lives of Demon Lovers. After all, Callie’s lifelong passion is the intersection of lurid fairy tales and Gothic literature—which is why she finds herself at Fairwick’s renowned folklore department, living in a once-stately Victorian house that, at first sight, seemed to call her name.

But Callie soon realizes that her dreams are alarmingly real. She has a demon lover—an incubus—and he will seduce her, pleasure her, and eventually suck the very life from her. Then Callie makes another startling discovery: He’s not the only mythical creature in Fairwick. As the tenured witches of the college and the resident fairies in the surrounding woods prepare to cast out the incubus, Callie must accomplish something infinitely more difficult—banishing this demon lover from her heart. (from Goodreads.com)

This story, rich with folklore and filled with the foreboding of an old-fashioned gothic novel, had me ping-ponging between love and frustration from the first chapter to the last:

• Love: Callie is professor of folklore, and an expert on that which relates to demon lovers – incubi, vampires, succubi, etc.
• Frustration: Given her field of study, it was absurd how long it took her to figure out what was going on with her own incubus.

• Love: There is a full small-town cast of characters – with a paranormal twist – that I enjoyed thoroughly. You can never have too many Brownies. (The fairy kind, or the chocolate variety.)
• Frustration: Callie seems independent in the beginning, but for much of the story, she’s stumbling into danger and being rescued by somebody else just in the nick of time. Given Callie’s own annoyances with the passivity of heroines in gothic literature, I found this rather ironic.

• Love: I enjoyed the mythology of the worldbuilding; the combination of fairy-and-demon lore was an interesting twist, and the nods to classic gothic stories were fun. (Locked drawers containing treasure, an attic full of journals and manuscripts…mysterious night-time occurances…fun stuff!)
• Frustration: The constant pop-culture references – particularly to contemporary paranormal fiction – felt overdone. I’m not going to like Callie more just because she’s read Twilight and likes Sookie Stackhouse.

• Love: Callie as teacher – I liked her compassion, and the way she interacted with and cared for her students.
• Frustration: She tends to be passive and reactive, letting others dictate her course of action, and keeping her protests and arguments to herself.

• Love: The house! I’d move in tomorrow…big, creepy, with a strange history, on the edge of a dangerous forest…fun, fun, fun!
• Frustration: Ambiguous eroticism. The sensual content of the story straddles the line between romance and erotica, and doesn’t quite fit either one. Callie’s responses further complicate the issue – she protests, then enjoys, the forceful attentions of the incubus, and it’s all a bit too lacking in adult consent for me to be entirely comfortable.

To summarize, The Demon Lover is a page-turning mix of contemporary storytelling, gothic throwbacks, and paranormal mystery – with a dash of the erotic for added spice. I’m honestly not sure who to recommend it to – it’s unique from anything else I’ve read lately – so I’ll go with that: if you’re looking for something a little dark and a little different, give this one a try in December.

• Rating:  

• The Demon Lover
• Juliet Dark (This is, apparently, a pseudonym of an already established author…I couldn’t find an author page to link to, but will update the post if I find one in the future.)
• Format Reviewed: ARC received for review through Netgalley

You might also like: