ARC Review: The Demon Lover by Juliet Dark

Title: The Demon Lover
Series: Fairwick Chronicles #1
Author: Carol Goodman, Juliet Dark (Pseudonym)
Pub. Date: December 27th, 2011
Publisher: Ballantine Books

Blurb:

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.

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My Thoughts

I would love to say this book grabbed me and pulled me into the story from the very beginning, but, sadly, that was not the case.

The Demon Lover starts off at a very, very slow pace. I struggled for close to 80 pages with it and was about to call it quits. But since I really hate dropping books I gave it a few pages more before finally deciding and that's when it finally gets a bit interesting. But... just a little.

Callie starts to find out who she and everyone around her are and that discovery process was entertaining. Not many of the events surprised me, I was actually waiting for them to happen. There was one thing that although not really surprising, I didn't think it was that. That was who Mara really was, she always did have a creepy air around her. I liked knowing more about Nicky's situation and I wasn't surprised about who Liam was. I could have told her that from the moment she read the poems. In light of everything that happened, I thought our Gothic romance novel heroine was just a tad bit trusting.

On top of that for a lot of the book, I felt like I was reading a study on Dahlia Lamotte's life and her works. In all honesty, I skimmed over those parts since in most times, Callie would "talk" about the same thing over and over. I understand she was obsessed with her findings and the thought that someone else had experienced her demon lover, but it was a little too much.

I will be reading the second book very soon. I hope its pace is quicker and there are unexpected turn of events. My rating for this book is around 2.5 to 3 stars out of 5.

*I received a digital copy from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
*I am not affiliated to Amazon, B&N, the Book Depository or any other online/physical store I mention on my blog.