Catherine M. (Catherine1) reviewed on 6/4/2010 + 60 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 3

This book started out a little slow for me, but once I got into it I couldn't put it down.

I really liked the fact that Kara is just a regular girl (who's also a summoner, of course) who gets caught up in a crazy situation. Her normalness is one of the reasons you can't help but root for her. She's a cop, but she's not automatically a bad ass. She has to work out to battle the stomach bulge like most everybody else. She has a weakness for chocolate donuts and she doesn't have the best social life. She's just doing her best to catch criminals while trying to be fair.

I found the demon lord, Rhyzkahl, to be an interesting character. I liked that the author made him dangerous and kept him dangerous. The author reminds us right alongside Kara that he'll make you regret it if you try to use him. He's not human and he lives by a whole different set of rules. He kind of reminded me of Raphael in Angels' Blood. He's not some one to toy with. I'm interested in seeing more of him in the next book. He won some cool points for what he did for Kara at the end of the book.

I liked all the time spent on describing the different levels of demons and the difficulty summoning them. I appreciated that those facts seemed to get as much attention as the police facts. I found the explanation of the origins to be interesting. They're not demons in the sense of heaven and hell. They're from another world entirely.

The sex scene in the beginning didn't really seem to fit with the rest of the story. It was kind of jarring. Kara seemed like an intelligent girl, but her actions didn't really fit with what I learned of her personality. She's scared for her life (with good reason) but suddenly that doesn't matter because she's turned on and ready to do it? It didn't seem like a very smooth transition from in mortal peril to hot sex.

I thought the police stuff was very well done. I, of course, speak from the position of no personal knowledge of that sort of thing, but it seemed authentic. The crime scene and autopsy descriptions were interesting. I feared that I might become bored by the surplus of details about it, but the author kept me engaged. The one thing that I found really odd about the investigation had to do with the man who had a connection to the victims of the Symbol Man. Shouldn't she (as a well trained cop) have considered him a suspect long before she did?

I liked that I didn't guess who the Symbol Man was. I enjoyed being surprised by it right alongside Kara. I found her relationship with Agent Ryan Kristoff a little odd. I didn't find him very interesting or compelling, but I thought it was really weird that Kara was totally fine with him basically turning into her roommate. You don't know this guy from Adam, why are you so accepting of him? Because I found him bland and a little irritating I hope that she doesn't get involved with him. I guess I'll find out as I read more of the series.

I'm looking forward to reading more by this author and thought this was a great start to a new series.

Back to all reviews by this member
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details