The Demon's Daughter (2004)

Absolutely loved this book! Picked it up this morning and didn't put it down until I was done! She is such an amazing author. The world she created in this series is interesting. All of the characters were amazing. The H&H were both lovely people. The romance was sweet and steamy and you could feel the love in the story. ( )

Absolutely loved this book! Picked it up this morning and didn't put it down until I was done! She is such an amazing author. The world she created in this series is interesting. All of the characters were amazing. The H&H were both lovely people. The romance was sweet and steamy and you could feel the love in the story. ( )

Without being overly cliche (though it had its moments), The Demon's Daughter was still a pretty good fantasy romance novel. The sex scenes were appropriately steamy, the pacing of the novel was good, and the back story was well-explained. The characterization was decent.

The thing that probably interested me the most was the inclusion of Eastern terms regarding the demons, when the book was set in a Victorian England type setting. Was it an intentional comment on East meeting West in the real Victorian Era, or just a little unthinking tidbit thrown in that just caught my eye? I don't know. Having not read anything else by this author, I don't know her style well enough to know if she's writing tongue-in-cheek. ( )

I'm a big fan of urban fantasy books, and I do get what the author was trying to achieve with this one, it just didn't hit the mark with me. The introduction of a race of "demons" who have already developed a whole modern society with modern inventions into the human world of Victorian Era England is an interesting premise and I do give the author credit for such a different plot. But, that aspect of it really fell flat for me. It almost seemed like the modern technologies were there only as a convenience to the author. How is a demon diplomat going to contact his prince in the demon world? I've got it! I'll just give him a video conferencing machine. Need to hold the heroine against her will? Just say there's some kind of "device" that can be put on the door to magically keep people out and muffle all sounds coming from the room. Want an erotic bathtub scene? Just give the heroine a modern bathroom. You don't have to explain how she could afford to come by such technology, it's fantasy afterall. Yes, I get it. It's fantasy. But, for me, fantasy has to also make some sort of sense, and most of this didn't at all.

Now, it could be that the whole thing didn't work for me because I just didn't care for the author's writing style. It seemed kind of juvenile in a way. In many parts, I felt like I was reading a YA book, and not a sophisticated adult urban fantasy. The sex scenes were a bit much. Not that I have a problem with sex scenes....I love a good sex scene. But, these just seemed over the top. The dialogue seemed out of place, not only in the sex scenes, but throughout the book. I can almost get behind the idea of modern technology in Victorian England because of the plot the author devised, but Victorian characters using modern dirty talk? Again, seemed out of place. Even if they can now use modern appliances, they're still Victorian era characters and should talk that way.

So, bottom line for me was that although the premise of this book was interesting and had promise, the execution left a lot to be desired. ( )

This book is set in a world where two people-like species have recently started mingling. All the characters seemed feminine, probably because this was my first romance in years.