The Demon Kiss (edition 2010)

Just finished The Demon Kiss, and quite enjoyed it. This is the second installment of "Of Witches and Warlocks" featuring Vance and Portia's love affair being disrupted by magic. Again Lacey Weatherford was able to keep the reader guessing what was going to happen while staying on the good side of the reader which tends to be a hard thing to do. The end was a bit anti-climatic between the (Spoiler alert!!!) demonic father of Vance (Damien Cummings) and the lovers. A simple slash and suck and all is right in the world??? (End of Spoiler) Again I would give a 4 out of 5 stars and recommend this book and overall the series. ( )

At the end The Trouble With Spells, Portia saves Vance from the clutches of evil and becoming a demon... only to have Vance leave her with only a note in his wake!

Portia and her friends set out to track Vance down and when they find him- Portia does the very LAST thing I expect! She freaking punched him in the face for leaving her! Ha! I love it! She is yelling up a storm, then Vance goes all dreamy on her and kisses her in that 'Oh so yummy' Vance-a-licious way! *sigh*

"I love you." he said, his words penetrating my mind as his lips ravaged mine.

After a very emotionally charged reunion, they set their sights on finding Vance's father... and what they find is SO much worse than any of them could have predicted!

Oooh The Demon Kiss is just as electric and intense as the first book was! Vance and Portia are sooo super cute together. Vance is wicked sexy, even with his red eyes that mark him as part demon! *swoon* If anything, this makes him hotter, because he's dangerous!

Another win for Lacey Weatherford! ( )

***NOTE MY REVIEWS OFTEN CONTAIN SPOILERS***

In this portion of 16 year old witch, Portia Mullins, story she and her friends Shelly and Brad take off searching for Portia's warlock boyfriend Vance Mangum. Vance has left Portia to search for his father in hopes of taking out the dangers his father might present to Portia in the future. Portia's friends are quickly ensconced in her magical world as they travel searching for Vance. Though Vance is quickly found, his fears of the danger he presents to Portia creates a lot of obstacles in their budding relationship and they find it difficult to convince him to return. The friends succeed in convincing him to join them and all four work together to search for Vance's evil father before finding him in Mexico. Eventually the entire coven joins them and this magic tale merges with one of spies and missions leaving readers turning the pages to the very end wondering who will win the game of cat and mouse.

The writing in this book compared to the first has cleaned up quite a bit with minimal grammatical errors and nothing enough to really jar you out of the story. It has the same wonderful flow and voice of the last story and definitely falls into the thrilling page turner category. It seems with each book by Weatherford she improves her work a little more offering the reader a better story. If she continues to improve at this rate I wouldn't be surprised to find her on the best sellers rack in a couple years.

While the characters still fall into the Mary Sue category, they are becoming more believable as she gives them more flaws and more hardship in this novel. The main issue with this work in my opinion is that her writing has a kind of sugar coating to it, like she's glossing it over so even the bad parts aren't that bad and it's almost as if she's afraid to get a little gritty with her characters and her story. There were a couple parts that were a little far-fetched like her father going from encyclopedia salesmen to government agent and the perfect moral compasses of every teenager in the story but otherwise it was a great read that kept you turning the pages from beginning to end.

I'd like to thank the author for offering this book as a Goodreads First Reads Giveaway that I was fortunate enough to win. I look forward to reading more works by Lacey Weatherford in her Of Witches and Warlocks Series. ( )

My thoughts:
~ the quick note ~
Demon Kiss is a fast-paced, tragic, triumphant, romantic, inspirational, emotionally loaded, powerful story. It grabs you from the first sentence and doesn't let you go! This is a "cover to cover, hope you downloaded book three on the same day" read.

If you haven't started the series at all - go get all three books (four is coming soon) - or if you have already read book 1 - then grab something to snack on, something to drink and get set up in your favorite reading spot and plan for a read-a-thon!

~ the longer version ~ (spoiler alert)
I am totally in love with this series! I finished the first book and immediately went looking for more! I was thrilled to find books two and three on Smashwords, so I bought and downloaded them both right then. I couldn't wait to get going on The Demon Kiss.

Demon Kiss started right away from where The Trouble With Spells left off.
Once again I was captured by the characters and intrigued by the story.
We are in back in another "Can love conquer all" situation.
Portia sets out in search of Vance - the love of her life - and in the company of her two best friends. Once they find Vance, we are taken on an emotional whirlwind ride and left breathless.
The connection between Vance and Portia is stronger than ever and they finally decide to work together to try to find and destroy Vance's demon father (Damien). This sets them up for a multi-country search for Damien. They discover that he is stealing power from other witches and warlocks with what is called the Demon Kiss and the only way to save everyone is to stop him. They finally find him, but he has found them too and comes for Portia just like she has seen in her dreams so many times.
Once Damien has Portia, the story seems to fly by as Vance sets out to save her. There is an epic battle between Vance and Damien. Of course (because there is a book 3) Vance is victorious.

This one too ends with a cliffhanger - hence my suggestion to have the next book already! ( )