Demon of Mine by Rayna Vause (Hell Inc #1)
Released: August 28, 2015
M/M Paranormal Romance
Dreamspinner
Reviewed by Mandi
I’m not usually attracted to demon stories, but being a male/male romance I thought I’d give it a try. The first half is pretty strong. Ryan’s sister has stage four cancer, and he will do anything to help her live. His best friend owns a mystic store and has an ancient book with spells in it. Ryan has never believed in anything supernatural but as a last resort, decides to summon a demon, pretty much believing nothing will happen. But he gets a text message from an unknown number to meet someone in the middle of the night.
That someone, is the demon Zavier. Fifty years ago, Zavier sold his soul to a demon to save his lover (named Ryan….hmmmm). Once a demon, he lost all of his memories and started the long-trek of collecting souls for “The South” aka Hell. In this world, heaven and hell are set up as a corporation, which could have been really cool but I had issues – I’ll come back to it in a minute. Zavier hates to see good people lose their souls, but it’s his job and duty. If he doesn’t perform, he will be punished. He meets Ryan and starts to have weird feelings about him. When they shake hands on the deal (Ryan selling his soul in five years in exchange for his sister’s life) Zavier gets flooded with memories from fifty years ago – that show Zavier and a man very similar to Ryan, in love. Present day Ryan he finds out, is a reincarnation of his past lover Ryan. Now he must convince present day Ryan they should be madly in love and try to break Ryan’s contract, so he doesn’t sell his soul.
Zavier starts off very cocky and funny. I highlighted a few passages in the beginning that made me smile. And at first I enjoyed this demon world. Maybe not the reincarnation part so much, but the way heaven and hell are set-up as a corporation and Zavier trying to reconnect with his old love, all the while trying to convince him selling his soul is a bad idea. But things go downhill in the second half.
The romance was odd. It’s great that these two were in love fifty years ago, but this is present day and I’m not sure I believed they would still be in love now. This Ryan is a “new” Ryan – a little different from old Ryan. All of a sudden, they are just in love? There was not enough focus on the chemistry and actual relationship in present day with these two. It just wasn’t a believable romantic journey for me.
And further, this demon world started to feel not so solid. If Zavier sold his soul and now has to live forever claiming other souls, he sure has a posh life. Not only posh but – after his superiors realize he was cheating the system at times, they decided to give him a second chance. It’s an awful nice demon world. If you are on the board of demon directors, I assume you are pretty nasty dudes and dudettes – right? These people didn’t fit the world. And the way it’s all resolved in the end felt weak to me.
The reincarnation love story falls flat and the world needed to be more consistent for me.
Grade: C
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