The Demon Lover(Fairwick Chronicles 1)Author: Juliet Dark, Carol GoodmanPublisher: Ballantine Books, 2011
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 her having written the bestselling book The Sex Lives of Demon Lovers. Callie’s lifelong passion is the intersection of lurid fairy tales and Gothic literature—which is why she’s found 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: Her incubus is 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 demon, Callie must accomplish something infinitely more difficult—banishing this supernatural lover from her heart.
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: Her incubus is 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 demon, Callie must accomplish something infinitely more difficult—banishing this supernatural lover from her heart.
My Review:
When Callie McFay accepted the teaching position at Fairwick College, she never imagined the incredible turn her life was about to take. Callie has spent her life studying the myths of the demon lover, but she never thought they could be some truth to them. Until now. The recurring erotic dreams she’s having are just the tip of the supernatural iceberg she’s about to hit. Honeysuckle House, home of famous erotic novelist Dahlia LaMotte, called to her since the moment she laid eyes on it. And moving there has only increased the power of the dreams. There seems to be a big secret surrounding the house and the town of Fairwick. A secret the whole town is bent on keeping quiet.
The Demon Lover is a steamy, intriguing, and mystery filled story. It had me with an eyebrow raised half the time, and my mind going “Oh, wow” every time the demon lover appeared. I loved the use of elements of nature to describe the act, like the waves and ocean, and the sunlight and trees. The story has a couple of plots running at the same time and the story almost lost me a couple of times. But there was never a dull moment in the life of Callie. I think there were some instances where too much history, literary references mostly, and facts where shoved. At other times I felt like the demon lover’s side of the story was completely forgotten in place of the secondary plots. So though the facts were interesting, and the other plots intriguing, what I really wanted was to know more about the demon lover and Callie!
The last part of the book was the best. That was when I made all the connections and the pace picked up quickly after that. I didn’t quite like the ending, but again that was only because I came to read this book with the idea that it was solely about the demon lover. It is not. And the ending left me unsatisfied in that his part is not resolved. The next book on the series should be even more interesting and action packed now that Callie is a witch in training, and all the secrets are out.
*I received this book via Netgalley from the publisher*
Favorite Quotes:
So I spent the two weeks in L.A. feeling a little like a high-priced hooker, trying to convince myself that having erotic fantasies about an imaginary lover was not the same as cheating.
~
I smiled ruefully and hoped she thought my embarrassment was from being caught literally sleeping on the job and not from having a depraved sex life with a demonic being.
~
“Well, that’s good, I guess…but still, I wish he was here. I wanted him to meet everybody.” As I looked around the room—at a witch, a manic-depressive, a Mesopotamian wind spirit, a fairy, and a gnome—I reflected that maybe it was just as well that I had another day adjusting to my new friends.
~
Well, duh, my boyfriend lived three thousand miles away and I only saw him a handful of times a year. No wonder I was unsatisfied. No wonder I was going around seducing incubi and sexy Irish poets and vampires. I was becoming “a woman on loose moral standards,” as my grandmother Adelaide, who would never use a common word like slut even when it was perfectly clear that’s what she meant, would say.
