The Demon Lover by Juliet Dark

Ok, so hmmm....

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this one.  I really wanted to love this book.  And I think I got there in the end, but it took almost the entirety of the novel.

You know when you read a really good book, and you literally can't put it down?  One of your children come to you for something and you hold up a hand and say "Shhh!"....You're husband asks what's for dinner, and you snap "Later!"....you forget what the word "sleep" means.  No??  Ok, maybe that's just me.  :-) But there are some books that you just want to devour.  As soon as you start that first sentence, you're sucked in and feel like your world won't be normal again until you reach the last page.  Throughout this entire book, I was trying to figure out what it was missing, and I think that's it.  That unique quality that keeps you up late at night saying "WAIT, just one more chapter!!"

The Demon Lover is beautifully written.  Juliet Dark is supremely talented.  I think I said in an earlier post, but I have extreme writer's envy.  Her descriptive abilities are phenomenal.   She takes something mundane as a candle burning and turns it into a work of art.

"The candle flames dance in it, the wicks guttering in the pools of melted wax.  Outside I could see treetops tossing in the wind.  The stream twisted in the air, coiling like a tail of a kite."

Also, the amount of research she would had to conduct on this book must have been staggering.  It shows in every chapter, and every character.  Serious work went into this book.  The mythology and academic work that went into this book is impressive.  She didn't just wake up one day and say "Gosh, I think I'm going to write a book today."

The book centers around Callie or or Cailleach McFay, a professor just hired at Fairwick College, a small private college on the East Coast.  Passing up several other larger opportunities for this position, Callie finds herself wondering if there is something odd going on  besides the ordinary quarks of a small college town.  She is soon visited by a love talker, or incubus, known for seducing his victims and sucking their life force.  Thinking it's only a dream, she continues her new life at Fairwick until she's cornered by the Dean and several of the other ladies in town telling her things are not what they seem.

"The three figures standing in the light of my front porch were so muffled and wrapped in layers of wool, down, and fur that I didn't recognize them at first.  They might have been the three magi- or the three witches in Macbeth.  Only when the middle one turned down the collar of her fur coat and spoke did I recognize my boss, Elizabeth Book.
"Hello, Callie, dear.  Won't you invite us in?"
I look from her to Diana Hart, zipped up in her wide-open eyes in a bright red down parka, and then to Soheila Lilly, muffled in a burgundy wool cloak.
"It's a little early for Thanksgiving dinner, I said.
We're not here for Thanksgiving, dear," Dean Book said with a sigh. "We're here for an intervention."

Even though this book is classified as romance, I feel it leans more towards fiction.  The love story is the most prominent part of the book which is why its in the romance category, but the actual romance, or um...heat, is low.  Not to say it isn't there at all, but the love scenes are brief and definitely not descriptive.  What I found most interesting is the more graphic love scenes were the ones not between the main characters, but between the characters in the romance books Callie would read.  Those were the steamiest scenes in the entire book.  Being a romance lover, I would have loved more heat between Callie and her Demon Lover.  But every author is different, and they write to their own comfort level.  The worst thing an author can do is write a scene they aren't comfortable with.  An awkward love scene is worse than a brief one.  But the scenes between Callie and her Demon Lover were beautiful, even though brief.  :-)

"I went to bed so exhausted that I was sure I wouldn't have the dream again.  But I did. I had it that night and every night for the next three weeks.  Each night I woke-or thought I awoke-to a moonlit room.  The shadows reached for me and swelled into the dark dark lover  I'd fell his weight on my chest and then, just when I thought I'd suffocate, he'd press his lips to mine and blow his breath into my lungs and we'd make love-long, deep, utterly spine-rocking, toe-curling sex that went until the first light of day."  

But I still felt it was missing that special something I need as a reader.  That part that makes me want to forgo a night of sleep to finish a book (even if my husband won't let me).  My life was crazy in the last two weeks, and I've been highly distracted, but I still had plenty of opportunities where I could have sat down for a few minutes to read this book...but I didn't.  It just didn't call to me as strongly as it should.  It wasn't until the very end of the novel when all of those carefully woven treads started to unravel, that I started to become more interested, to the point where I couldn't put it down.

I'm glad the book finally got to that point because now I am excited for the second book, The Water Witch.  The Demon Lover does not end. I want to make that clear.  It is not a stand alone book, and the story-line does not resolve itself in the end.  I wouldn't say it ends in a cliff-hanger, because if it did, you would see some serious sailor words flying right about now, but the story definitely isn't over.  It's just enough to keep you coming back to the second book.

So, am I recommending it?  Yes........but. :-)
Just know going in that it's on the longer side, and it takes some time to get into.  It's not a love at first sight book.  But I think it's worth it in the end.

Purchase The Demon Lover: A Novel - Paperback
Purchase The Demon Lover: A Novel - Kindle Edition
Purchase The Demon Lover: A Novel - Nook Edition