Hired by a Demon, by Gypsy Madden

Hired by a Demon, the debut novel by indie author, Gypsy Madden, takes us into a paranormal reality, and entertains us well. Hired by a Demon is an action-packed adventure that bodes well for her future works. I found it to be  creative, ingenious, and a roller-coaster of adventure.

The Blurb:

Three years without a word from the magical half of the planet, and suddenly there was a demon in Vara’s bedroom. Samanith, the representative of the sinister Kendrick & Clarke Temp Agency, had come to offer her a simple baby-sitting position. What Sam neglected to mention was that the ‘baby’ was a headstrong teenage girl, heir to a fortune, the only daughter of the Agency’s most influential client, and she had been bitten by a werewolf.

Dogged by guilt over her father’s mysterious disappearance, which she suspects has been caused by the demons to keep her in line, Vara finds herself facing her brooding former boyfriend, currently working as the heiress’s bodyguard. He still harbors a grudge over their breakup and has resolved to make her job an unpleasant one.

Will Vara survive the rabid wolf instincts growing inside the teenage heiress who hungers for her magic? Or the lecherous tabloid reporter determined to turn the situation into a front page scandal? Or the pack of wolf hunters who want the heiress dead, and possibly Vara too, and all because she had been HIRED BY A DEMON.

My Review:

Vara’s charge is the daughter of an extremely wealthy, powerful man, Lord Stadler. The family is nobility, and don’t you forget it. Arrogance and privilege ooze from their pores.  Just keeping track of Laris is a trick—she does as she pleases, and those who wish to save her must somehow work around her willful misbehavior, or woe unto them.

Sam, of course, has an agenda of his own, and his meddling goes well beyond his messing with Vara’s life. But he’s a demon, so what do you expect?

The action is non-stop and the mood swings from dark to funny and back to dark, keeping the very original plot moving along. I enjoyed the attraction between Laris and Vara, and Laris and Austen, and Laris and Richard. In fact, the attraction between Laris and nearly everyone quite intense, and appears to be a fundamental part of her magic.

There are some quite hilarious moments. Can I just say that I LOVED the gargoyles?   But even with the humor, this book isn’t all fun and games by any means. There is a real, compelling dark tale here with a deep plot for the reader to sink into, and many tantalizing threads that finally come together in the end.  

I had a great time reading this book.  I highly recommend Hired by a Demon for a great weekend read!

Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones

This week I finally read Diana Wynne Jones' classic tale, Howl's Moving Castle.  I have long been a fan of the classic animè movie by Hayao Miyazaki that is loosely based on the tale, but I must say that the movie does not tell the tale at all the way that Diana Wynne Jones wrote it. In her book, there are no enemy aircraft bombing anyone. Rather, the tension is between Howl, his personal failings and the Witch of the Waste. 

The book begins with a young woman named Sophie Hatter.  She is the eldest of three daughters living in the town of Market Chipping in the magical kingdom of Ingary, where magic and witchcraft are accepted ways of life. She is very talented with the needle and makes the most beautiful hats and dresses, unknowingly talking life into the hats she creates and other objects.

As the eldest of three girls, she believes that she will have no chance of finding her fortune, accepting that she will have a dull life running the family hat shop.  That is, she accepts it until she is turned into an old crone by the Witch of the Waste, a powerful witch who is not at all pleased with one of Sophie's hats. Mortified, Sophie leaves the shop and installs herself as a cleaning lady for the notorious Wizard Howl, by simply moving in and taking over.  He is infamous in her town for eating the hearts of beautiful young women. Sophie hopes to make a bargain with him to have her spell removed so that she will be young again.

However, she soon learns that Howl is a rather self-absorbed, dishonest and cavalier but ultimately good-natured person and an extraordinarily talented wizard. She discovers that he spreads many malicious rumours about himself to ensure his privacy and smears his own reputation to avoid work and responsibility.   As she gets to know him better, she frequently refers to him as a 'Slither-er Outer' because he always  manages to slither out of things that are disagreeable or involve real work. 

The door to his castle is actually a portal that opens onto four different places: the moving castle Sophie first encounters in the hills above Market Chipping, the seaside city of Porthaven, the royal capital of Kingsbury and Howl's boyhood home in Wales, where he was named Howell Jenkins.

Sophie immediately makes a bargain with Howl's resident fire demon, Calcifer: if Sophie can break the contract Howl and Calcifer have signed, then Calcifer will return Sophie to her original form. Part of the contract, however, stipulates that neither Howl nor Calcifer can disclose the terms of the contract to any third party. Sophie tries to guess the specifics of the contract, while Calcifer supplies frequent hints which Sophie usually doesn't pick up on.

Howl himself realizes that Sophie is under a spell and secretly attempts to remove the curse, but when he is unable to remove it, he comes to the conclusion that, for some reason, Sophie wants to remain an old woman.  Since she apparently wishes to be an old lady, he plays along with it, not letting on to her that he is aware that she is under a spell.

Howl's apprentice, Michael Fisher, does all the work of running of Howl's business, while Howl himself is out chasing his long string of paramours.  The minute a girl gives in to him, Howl falls out of love with her. Soon it emerges that Howl and Michael are courting Sophie's two younger sisters Lettie and Martha.  Michael is sincere, and truly loves Martha (who is going by the name of Lettie due to the girls switching places in their jobs). Sophie is worried about the real Lettie, whom Howl is obsessed with, knowing that the minute Lettie admits her love to him he will drop her like a hot rock and she doesn't want her sister to be hurt by him.  

Prince Justin, the King's younger brother, goes missing while searching for Wizard Suliman, who is actually Benjamin Sullivan, also from Wales.  The King orders Howl to find Suliman and Justin and kill the Witch of the Waste for him, as she is responsible for their disappearances. Howl, however, has his own reasons to avoid seeking a confrontation with the Witch of the Waste. The Witch, a jilted former lover, has laid a curse on him.

Howl attempts to weasel out of this exalted royal appointment by having Sophie pretend to be his mother and petition the King against the appointment.  Her attempt to convince the King that Howl is a self-absorbed, dishonest and cavalier 'Slither-er Outer' is unsuccessful.  Howl becomes the official Royal Wizard despite his wishes to the contrary.

I must say that I really enjoyed this book.  It was first published in 1986, and how it was that I never read it before this, I don't know. I am now going to read more of Diana Wynne Jones' work, as this is also the first book of hers that I have read.  I heartily recommend this book to anyone who has seen the movie, because, as so often happens, the movie is a completely different tale altogether. 

Losing Beauty, Johanna Garth

As the title of this blog  proclaims, normally I read epic fantasy and science fiction. However this week I am blogging on a tale that is very different from my favorite epic hack-and-slash-fest type of saga.  Stay with me - I haven't lost my love of all things Tolkien, just temporarily branched out a bit.

Losing Beauty by Johanna Garth is an urban fantasy in the broadest sense, being a modern take on the Hades - Persephone tale.  I am a sucker for mythology of any sort, and Greek mythology offers a lot opportunity for new retellings, as Rick Riordan has shown us in his Percy Jackson Series.

I met Johanna in the course of business since we are both published by Fantasy Island Book Publishing.  I was intrigued by the cover of her book, and when I bought the Kindle book I found myself completely absorbed in her tale.

The story begins with Persephone Campbell, a girl with a problem. Persey is a beautiful girl, and everyone loves her. Even as a child, people find themselves telling her their  problems: terrible things which no normal person would ever tell anyone, much less a child. Even so, people can't resist telling her their deepest and darkest secrets; a thing which continues into her adulthood. Her ability to draw the deepest secrets from people is strange, and it emerges that she was adopted as a baby and her father was listed as 'unknown'.

Three men love her to the point of obsession. After high school, Persey marries her high-school sweetheart, Aaron Strait out of a sense of duty, more than anything else.  She loves her husband, but she realizes that her love for him is not the sort of love that a wife should feel for her husband. Still, she does love him and remains a loyal wife.

Persey goes to work for the same company as Daniel Hartnet, a man with an uncanny ability to read people, that he calls his crap-o-meter. This ability to read motives is every bit as uncanny as is Persey's ability to draw out secrets. He discovers that he can't read Persey, and that really intrigues him.  He soon becomes obsessed with her, but like the moderately decent man he is, he respects her commitment to her marriage.

Johanna Garth draws her characters well. Haden is a bad man, selfish and focused only on his own desires but quite seductive and very compelling.  Daniel Hartnet is not lily-pure in his motives, but he is a basically good man and also quite seductive.   Aaron is a simple, high-school jock-made-good; a man who is solely driven by his desire to protect and provide for her; and she is completely aware of that. Aaron becomes very successful, and on the surface everything looks perfect.

What she does not realize is that she is the one true love of Haden, also known as Hades, God of the Underworld. He has followed her progress since her earliest childhood, grooming her to be his wife in various different guises. He has even posed as the coach in her highschool. There is no length that he won't go to to have her.  When she marries Aaron, Hayden puts a terrible plan into action, using all of his resources as Lord of the Underworld; and soon she finds herself tied to the last person she wants to be tied to.  That is where the adventure really begins.

Persey is a nice girl, but her secret ability is hard for her to bear; and she feels that she is responsible for a tragic event that is the sole responsibility of Haden. He, of course, uses her insecurity to bind her to him even more tightly.
Johanna Garth has written an urban fantasy that is sophisticated, and romantic. It is a wonderful adventure that takes Persey from rural america to New York to Asia, and has many twists and turns that are quite unexpected. The ending was quite unexpected! 

While this book was a real dip into uncharted literary waters for me, I freely admit that I had a great time reading this story and highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good romantic urban fantasy. I am now a fan! I will definitely be reading anything Johanna Garth writes!