Book Review and Giveaway 2 Copies: Demons Prefer Blondes by Sidney Ayers

Fast, fun, and as the author says “snarky!”
Demons Prefer Blondes by Sidney Ayers

• Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca; Original edition (June 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1402251742
• ISBN-13: 978-1402251740

     Genre: Paranormal Romance
     My Rating:  4.0 of 5.0

Product Description

A BAD DAY FOR A DEMON

Rafe Deleon is a senior demon and he resents like hell his assignment to Earth to retrieve the Chest of the Damned before it falls into the wrong hands. But then he meets beautiful, intriguing succubus Lucy Gregory and she's just unleashed a whole load of trouble...

REALLY SUCKS FOR A SUCCUBUS

Lucy's chic suburban beauty salon has suddenly become the Underworld's center of mass chaos and destruction. The only good thing in a day going rapidly down the tubes is the arrival of a gorgeous demon who's adamant that he can help her...

But Lucy has quite a few deeply unpleasant--not to mention deadly and hateful--surprises ahead of her, and surely there's never been a worse time to try out a new boyfriend...

Review: This is fast paced - filled with quirky characters and lots of humor.

Sweet Lucy dropped out of med school to open her own beauty salon as she is happier cutting hair than cutting bodies. Her vivacious best friend, Serah, drops by to show off her latest antique find, a dirty chest. Latin coming easily to Lucy and she interprets the inscription to be the “Chest of the Damned.”

Rafe is a demon seeking redemption. He has been ordered to retrieve the Chest even if he’d rather trade places with his friend Dominic who has been given the mission to save Rafe’s sister from Belial, a leader of the bad demons. Rafe knows there is something special when Lucy doesn’t fall under his enchantment and now he needs to protect Lucy as well as the chest.

Lucy manages to open the chest and release chaos in her shop. The chest also releases her own Succubus personality.  Now Lucy’s shop is attracting all sorts of unwanted attention including men attracted to her new pheromones, demons drawn to the spirit activity, and Belial drawn to Lucy’s new powers.

The story is full of interesting characters.  Lucy’s stylists are the dramatic and sashaying, Frank, and the wanna-be model, feather wearing Latino, Geraldo.  Rafe’s crew includes the eccentric Kalli and the odd demon turned chimpanzee, Squeaky.

Both Rafe and Lucy have insecurities that add to the conflict and suspense. Rafe views himself as having failed in prior missions and he struggles to believe he can truly protect Lucy.  Lucy learns surprising things about her own family history.  Although she doesn’t have the training or understand the enemies’ powers, Lucy insists on jumping into the fight.

It bothered me that Rafe spends a lot of time disappearing from protection duty to jump back to meetings in Limbo. Although he pops back just in time for rescues, it really didn’t make plausible sense to me.

The characters are delightfully likeable and fun and the plot concept is full of action, trouble, rescue and some sizzling romance. I just felt that the writing didn’t keep up with the action. There was unnecessary repetition and the characters would keep talking about 'doing' things instead of moving into action. The book gave me the impression of taking a good start but rushing to a sloppy finish. I think the author has marvelous potential and I hope that she and the right editor will work on consistency in the plotline to be more realistic (even in fantasy the behaviors have to make sense). Also there should be more show and less tell in the action scenes. Still - this is worth reading for the fun.

Thank you to Sourcebooks for providing this book for reading and review and for providing two copies for Giveaway.

TO ENTER THIS GIVEAWAY:

1. Visit the Author's website and tell me something you found interesting;
This is required for entry.
Make sure you leave your e-mail address!

2. For two extra entries, comment on the Author Interview.

3. For another two entries, complete the Author's sentence at Interview Q10.
4.  For an extra entry, become a follower or tell me if you are already a follower.

5. For two entries, blog, facebook, tweet (any of those networks!) about this giveaway and tell me where you did.

It isn't necessary to use separate entries unless you want them in different chronological order.
(Eight total entries possible.) MAKE SURE YOU LEAVE YOUR E-MAIL!

THERE WILL BE THREE WINNERS!

* This contest is only open to residents of US and Canada.

* No P.O. Boxes Please - for shipping reasons.

* Limit one win per household.

* This contest will close 10 PM (Central) on July 8 , 2011.
The winners will be randomly selected from all entries.