Prince of Tricks by Jane Kindred (Demons of Elysium #1)
Released: January 7, 2014
Erotic m/m paranormal romance
Samhain

Reviewed by Mandi

I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump lately. I wanted to read a book that excited me, and nothing I picked up was satisfying that need. I have 1,000 books in my to-be-read pile yet nothing appealed. I was whiny!! And no one likes a whiny reader. So I whined to Tori and her response was – Prince of Tricks by Jane Kindred. Now, when she told me to read this book I did a little frowny face. I’m not huge into erotic demon stories. That whole premise just doesn’t appeal to me. But I decided to set my whiny butt down and just try it. And I was immediately sucked into this world and these two fabulous characters.

Belphagor is a demon airspirit who has earned himself the nickname, Prince of Tricks for his ways at winning cards  and pretty much anything else he chooses to win. He doens’t always play fair or follow the rules but he’s a demon so what are you going to do. For the past year, Belphagor has been involved with a fire demon named Vasily. Belphagor loves to dominate, Vasily needs to submit – so they make a good pair. When this book starts, Belphagor has finally had sex with Vasily and they already both deeply care for the other – even though there are still a lot of kinks to work out between them.

“Sweet boy,” Belphagor slipped out of the velvet coat. “Stand up.”

Vasily obeyed, his tearstained face bewildered as Belphagor pt the garment on him.

“You could never disappoint me.” He straightened the collar ad drew Vasily’s head down gently to kiss him, the heat of the firespirit mouth making Belphagor’s cock twitch as his tongue usurped its place. “Everything you do,” he said when he’d let him go at last, “every scowl, every burst of temper, every act of defiance against me – it gives me pleasure, do you understand that?”

Vasily shook his head, his expression baffled.

“You give me an excuse to punish you,” he admitted with a wry smile. “The only way you could truly disappoint me would be to behave. I’d absolutely hate it if you didn’t constantly infuriate me.”

While this book is very erotic/explicit (which I loved and I’ll talk more about in a minute) what I enjoyed even more is the courtship in this book. Underneath the egos and the play for power, is this raw yet sweet adoration between these two and that really gave this book depth. When I read the silly warnings that Samhain puts with the blurb of each book, I expected just total crazy sex in this book and not much else. But the relationship these two have surprised me in a good way.

Do we need a crazy sex break? Yes we do. Vasily is a fire demon, which means he has hot spunk. Because why not!

“You can give me that heat too. Kneel on the side of the bed and jerk off on my cock. Make it nice and warm, but don’t get carried away.”

He knew he was taking a chance with this order. Vasily was furious enough that he might burn him anyway and risk the punishment. After an angry pause, Vasily rested his knees on the mattress and masturbated, already so worked up that it was less than a minute before he moaned with release, holding his cock over Belphagor’s as the hot, firespirit spunk pumped from the inflamed head and bathed Belphagor’s. Belphagor nearly came just from the sensation of the perfectly heated fluid sliding down his shaft.

As I mentioned, Belphaor is the dominant – he possesses and owns Vasily in this book, which Vasily entirely agrees to and wants. There is humiliation at times – which isn’t always a favorite thing of mine but I could let it go in this book and setting. Belphagor can realllly lay out a punishment for Vasily, but again- Vasily is into it so it works.  They explore with other partners too – and not to sound like a complete broken record – but I didn’t mind this either. You get a sense right from the beginning as to how these two play off one another. Vasily is rash and emotional and can make spontaneous decisions which get him in trouble. Belphagor is a little more mature and wordly, yet his love for Vasily will drive him to do crazy things.

There is an actual plot in this book – not just crazy sex! Vasily gets into some trouble early – he rushes off mad at Belphagor one day and gets captured and is forced into ‘helping’ a rebellion start. Belphagor goes on a crazy rampage to get him back. Later in the book they go into hiding ‘down below’ – aka on regular earth and meet some friends. I liked how it all progresses.

I did get a little confused with all the names of demons and names of places in heaven and just the overall setting sometimes would throw me out of the story. But ignoring that fact this is a fun, different read. Book two continues their story out this April.

Rating: B

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