Demon Song by Cat Adams

Demon Song by Cat Adams

Book stats:

Reading level: Adult
Genre: Urban fantasy
Trade paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Tor
Release date: March 1, 2011

Series: Blood Singer #3

Reviewed by: Jenn

Source: Personal shelf

Purchase: Amazon | Book Depository

In a world where magic is real and the supernatural is almost normal, bodyguard Celia Graves has survived a vampire attack which made her a half-vampire and awakened her latent Siren abilities. She's battled a Siren Queen to the death and twice faced down a demon that wants to kill her--slowly. She's also had her heart broken--twice--by her old flame, magician Bruno DeLuca.

Perhaps the worst thing was the discovery that Celia's life has been warped by a curse laid on her during childhood--the cause of everything from the death of her little sister to the murder of her best friend the same night that Celia became an Abomination.

An ancient rift between the demonic dimension and our own--sealed during the destruction of Atlantis--begins to open, threatening to loose all the demons of hell on humanity (including the one personally bent on destroying Celia). Celia's hellish recent experiences have given her the unique combination of abilities needed to close the rift. But to overcome the curse, which nearly guarantees her failure, she'll need to join forces with people she no longer trusts...and put people she has come to care about directly in harm's way.

I discovered the Blood Singer series a couple months ago, thanks to Tynga’s post about a blow-out sale at bookcloseouts.ca a while back. It’s such a fantastic site that, incidentally, has free shipping right now -- for a limited time only -- so go check it out, my fellow Canucks!

With each book, I love the Blood Singer series even more. I wasn’t sure I could love Celia and her world more but I was thrilled by Demon Song. The two ladies (C. T. Adams and Cathy Clamp) who write as Cat Adams have done an amazing job with this story, not only in this book but in the series in general. I’ve been thrilled by all three installments. There are romantic developments, interesting magic, high stakes action, and some excellent character work, particularly in Demon Song. It’s impossible for me to say what I liked best about this book because it was all so good!

One of my favorite aspects of the series is the nature of Celia’s supernatural abilities. She was attacked by vampires at the start of Blood Song, but she wasn’t converted all the way, so she’s a half-vampire (or an Abomination, depending on who you talk to), carrying some vampiric traits (needs to drink blood, burns in the sun) but not all of them. Celia clings to her humanity, sometimes by the skin of her teeth, so she’s this sort of hybrid human-vampire. Plus she’s got Siren in her background, which remained dormant until she was bitten. This combination of Siren and vampire is something I haven’t seen in other stories and it makes Celia a force to be reckoned with, both in her world and also the genre. (Plus, we rarely see sirens in UF/paranormal books, at least compared to vampires and were-beasties, so it’s a refreshing take on traditional UF vampirism.)

Of course, it’s not just her powers that make Celia awesome. She’s got a winning personality, if you like tough, stubborn women, which I do. And so do some of the men in the book, since Demon Song puts the Creede-Celia-Bruno love triangle in the middle of the action. I can totally understand why Celia is torn between Bruno, her ex who’s this powerful, adorable Italian guy with baggage, and Creede, who’s just as powerful and accepts Celia as she is but has some sneakiness and mystery about him. They’re both interesting, compelling characters and have very different things to offer Celia. Her confusion about what to do with two men after having years of no men is pretty funny, too.

The romantic subplot is woven seamlessly into the main plot line about the scary rift that’s letting demons invade our world. The demon invasion was really neat since it lets the reader learn a lot more about how magic works in the Blood Singer series, and harkens back to events from previous novels since there’s a demon who has a lot of personal investment in Celia (though you don’t need to know precisely what happened before to get into Demon Song since the authors do a great job of filling in the blanks). I love how the stakes in this book are higher than they’ve ever been, and how Celia is the only one who can deal with it, thanks to her mixed heritage. I also love that Celia’s forced to deal with her own issues in this book, since she has to help Kevin and his dad out of a pickle. The authors have done an admirable job of beating Celia up, both emotionally and physically, in this book and I can’t wait to see what they put her through next. Whatever it is, I’m sure that readers will love it!

Read an excerpt

Posted by jenn at 09:09

 Cat Adams, Review  6 People left their mark

Born and raised in the Toronto area, Jenn moved to St. John's, Newfoundland, eight years ago for school. She's still in school (thankfully on another degree!), now trapped in her dissertation. When she's not dissertating, which happens more often than it should, Jenn spends her time reading, watching movies, playing volleyball, travelling, and enjoying the local music scene. Her latest addictions: yoga and Almond Crunch cereal.