Book Review: Demon, Interrupted by Elliot Parker

This was a very cool take on the classic good vs. evil concept, delivered in a well-written and engaging voice. I was contacted by the author and asked if I would be interested in taking a look at her urban fantasy, “centered around an infusion of Catholic mythology that assumes the Patron Saints passed supernatural powers onto their descendants, or X-men meets the Da Vinci code” with the delightful added explanation “I use Catholic mythology the way Rick Riordan uses the Greeks”. With that as my introduction, I was immediately intrigued – while using religious mythology as the underpinning of a story is not at all a new concept, the idea of focusing on saints and their powers was (at least, it was to me), and as a Catholic School-survivor, I couldn’t wait to see how this would play out. I was pleased, to say the very least (even if Sister Mary Roberta wouldn’t have been)…

The basic premise is simple: Evangeline has a gift for finding lost things, and she has been plagued by people seeking to (ab)use that power her whole life. As a result, she’s more than a little bit of a lost thing herself… Enter an angel and things go from bad to good – and then promptly swing ’round to worse. The journey is full of myth, legend, and mystery – and it’s written in an engaging prose that had me furiously flipping pages to see what would happen next. It stuttered for me just a bit about two-thirds of the way through. There’s a Big Twist (it was alluded to, so not actually a surprise in hindsight) that throws things way off kilter and I found the pacing to skip a beat for a little while as a result. Fortunately, Parker – like Evangeline – finds her way expeditiously, and the pace shortly picked right back up to break-neck, where it stayed throughout the remainder of the story.

Overall this was a fun romp through some long-forgotten religious history and mythology for me, as well as a very enjoyable quest into some new territory that the ending suggests will perhaps be revisited (and expanded upon) in books to come. The characters are well-painted and likeable (even when they’re excessively trying not to be); Remmy is a personal favorite and I do hope he will see more backstory and play in coming volumes. The world around them is equally well-developed and just the right mix of real and fantastic for the story. All in all this was an enjoyable book, and a world I would definitely visit again!

My review copy was provided by the author; this provision in no way colored my review.