Personal Demon by Kelley Armstrong

Personal Demon by Kelley Armstrong

(Random House - March 2008)

Rating: Good

I'm a huge Kelley Armstrong fan, to the point where I bought her latest in hardcover. It's the first one of her books I've been a bit disappointed in, though it was still worth reading.

The story is:

Armstrong's books focus on different women with paranormal powers. Her first book, Bitten, is about the werewolf Elena. Subsequent stories have looked at witches, necromancers, vampires, and more, all set in the same world with overlapping characters.

Hope Adams is Armstrong's latest protagonist. She's a half-demon--the offspring of the demon Lucifer and a human mother. She has a thirst for chaos...human emotions that come from frightening or exciting situations. In Personal Demon, Hope is testing herself--she goes undercover with a paranormal gang to find out if she can really trust herself when surrounded by chaos. She's worried about what might happen if a friend is in trouble--will she remain in control of herself enough to help, or will she give in to her lust for chaos? Along the way, Hope also has to figure out her relationship with werewolf theif Karl Marsden, and how she fits into the greater supernatural community.

Dislike Hope, dislike the book?

Some of Kelley Armstrong's characters are quite controversial within her fan community. Many people hated the protagonist of her last book, Jaime. Jaime has always been one of my favourite characters, so I didn't quite understand the reaction...however, now I get it, because I don't like Hope. She's appeared briefly in novellas and the previous novels, and I've never gotten her. She seems kind of young and selfish, and not particularly interesting, which I think is where this book failed a bit for me. Even with the romance, I never quite got what Karl saw in her...and considering that Karl was a bit of a villain in previous books, for me to say Hope doesn't deserve him really shows how little I cared for her.

Also, for the first half of the book, Hope had a somewhat unclear mission to spy on a supernatural gang...but the stakes weren't really high enough for me, because the mission was not very well defined.

Lucas saves the novel!

There's a secondary narrator, Lucas, who we know from previous books. I like him a lot. so I perked up during his sections of the book. By the second half, his storyline received more focus, so I quite enjoyed the last half, but overall the book was just okay to me.

Series: Book 8 in the Women of the Otherworld series.

It can technically stand alone, because it's the first book with Hope as protagonist, but I wouldn't recommend reading this one first...it's more fun if you know who the secondary characters are already.