Personal Demon (Women of the Otherworld, Book 8) | Kelley Armstrong

Personal Demon (Women of the Otherworld, Book 8) | Kelley Armstrong | 4.5 star - Starts out entertaining and ends up a real page-turner. Wow!

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Personal Demon (Wo...

	Personal Demon (Women of the Otherworld, Book 8) Kelley Armstrong Spectra, 2008 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 37 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Top Notch Paranormal Thrill Ride

I really love the Otherworld Series. What's not to like? Smart, funny, ballsy female protagonists with awesome powers engaging in razor sharp dialogue (and occasionally some hot and sweaty) while solving high-stakes, fast-paced mysteries in a fully-realized world. But I was getting a little worried when every subsequent book was darker and grittier than the one previous, usually involving some kind of threats or execution of sexual violence (a personal pet peeve for being an overused shorthand for 'Attention reader: This is BAD NEWS'). I guess writing her crime novels is getting that out of her system, because while this book was far from a giddy laugh riot, it felt a bit like coming up for air.

The universe is still real and fascinating, the characters remain attractive and intriguing, the banter is compelling, and the ending is fraught with pants-wettingly fast action and so many unexpected twists I felt like I was visiting a new chiropractor. I admit, I found myself picking this book up somewhat grudgingly, thinking "Not another new narrator..." and wishing for more time with my favorite and recently neglected ladies, Hope won me over immediately. She's a likable character in an engaging plot.

Kudos to Kelley Armstrong for another strong showing. May the Otherworld series be extended well beyond ten books. Please?

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4.5 star - Starts out entertaining and ends up a real page-turner. Wow!

Personal Demon at first appears to be Hope Adam's story. Hope is the tabloid journalist and half chaos demon who first appeared in Armstrong's short "Chaotic" in the Dates From Hell anthology where Hope hooked up with werewolf jewel thief Karl Marsten and Hope also appeared in Armstrong's No Humans Involved (Women of the Otherworld, Book 7) where I was disappointed to discover that she and Karl had parted ways. While Hope does get a chance to shine on her own for part of Personal Demon and to learn more about her demon powers, she loses the spotlight to Lucas Cortez, Paige's sorcerer husband, and the unwilling heir to the Cortez Cabal who is on board to act as safety net for Hope as she goes undercover to infiltrate a gang making trouble for the Cortez Cabal in Miami.

In her gang member role Hope participates in some daring robberies, which up her adrenaline and begin increasing her demon-side's taste for chaos and challenging her control. Soon Hope begins to question herself and wonders if she were in the position of choosing the chaos `kick' over doing the right thing, whether she would end up being more demon than human after all. As part of her role as 'socialite Faith joining the gang for kicks', Hope decides to put her rejection by Karl behind her by pursuing a fling with fellow gang member Jaz who is handsome and appealingly happy go lucky -- Jaz trails chaos in his wake which adds to his appeal for Hope. But just as she's getting to the point where things are starting to steam up with Jaz and where her undercover role is starting to produce results, the gang is attacked apparently by rogue members of the cabal. Jaz and fellow gang member Sonny are kidnapped and another gang member is murdered. As the situation begins to get dicey for Hope, Karl shows up to cover Hope's back and Hope and Karl finally deal with the issues that tore their relationship apart while persuing the gang's attackers.

As the gang appears to be under attack by the Cabal, the Cabal also suffers a major attack and the story transitions to Lucas as he is forced to deal with the aftermath of a several connected incidents that threaten the very foundation of the Cabal. Hope's story was entertaining but Lucas' was gripping, a real page turner -- I just had to finish and find out what happened. I am sure that the events here will shake things up for Lucas and Paige permanently and it looks like Lucas will have some serious decisions to make in the future that may challenge his ethics in order to save the very institution he has spent years fighting. Personal Demons left me eagerly awaiting Living with the Dead (Women of the Otherworld, Book 9) to see what happens next to Lucas and Paige, who along with Jeremy, are my favorites in Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series.

Personal Demon is the 8th full length novel fro the Women of the Otherworld series and takes advantage of much that has come before. Lucas and Paige are introduced and developed in Dime Store Magic (Women of the Otherworld, Book 3) and Industrial Magic which provides alot of Lucas' character and background on his relationship with his father and the Cabal and you will enjoy Hope and Karl much more if you read the short "Chaotic" I mentioned above. So if you've been following Armstrong's series all along you will appreciate everything she's pulled together in this book and its events seem pivotal to the series -- you won't want to miss it. If you are new to the series, Armstrong does explain enough that it shouldn't be too confusing, but part of the satisfaction in reading a long running series is being intimately acquainted with the world and the characters, so I would recommend at least reading Dime Store Magic and Industrial Magic to bring you up to speed on Armstrong's world.

If you looking for more Armstrong to hold you over until the next book and haven't already discovered Armstrong's website you should check it out. Armstrong has presents for her fans in the form of a bunch of great fill-in short stories for her series. Even though Amstrong has pulled a few stories from the site (these are set be released as an anthology, Men of the Otherworld, with its proceeds will going to charity) there are still some great gems left, including ones on Lucas, Paige, and Karl.

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Better than I had hoped!

I love the way this series progresses. From the few glimpses of Hope we have had in the past, I was afraid there wasn't much more we could learn of her. I was so wrong! We get a deeper insight into Hope and through her association with Karl, with the Pack. Well written, as always an keeps moving. The Cabal gets tied in, as do some very new and strange Supernaturals. Keeps you interested and involved from start to finish! My only regret is now we have to wait for the next one

Personal Demon doesnt disappoint

Kelley Armstrong has another winner with this installment of the Women of the Otherworld series.

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I see the trend...

I read the anthology involving Karl and Hope and was surprised to hear that Hope would get her own story. There was just nothing special enough about her to justify a book of her own (in my opinion). But, given the possibility that I could be wrong, I gave the book a try. Guess what? She really wasn't interesting.

I should have known this was coming after I read "Exit Strategy". I liked both it and "No Humans Involved"; I just didn't love either book. The same can be said for "Personal Demon". It's a decent story, but not a good story. This storyline is more suited to established protagonists like Elena/Clay or Paige/Lucas.

Also, there is more about Jazz than Karl in this work (if you don't count Hope's flashbacks). I had a problem with this. Not that Karl is very interesting outside of occasionally flavoring an Elena and Clay tale. Jazz is such a boring young man, which is inexcusable despite Karl being a boring old man (is it me or did Karl seem more youthful and appealing when dealing with Elena in "Bitten"?). I didn't care for Jazz's syrupy personality. If he has to show up in future books, I hope KA gives the poor guy a little more bad-azzedness. This story didn't fit urban fantasy enough for me. Yeah, yeah, chaos, morphing, whatever. The trend in the Otherworld books seems to be to take more of the fantasy out of the urban. I say let Hope and Jazz have each other. Two boring mixes might pop out something interesting.

On another point of contention, Hope talks too much. Rather, there are too many of her thoughts on paper. What's appealing about Elena, Eve, and Paige is their ability to take action, then explain. The results of their actions encourage quicker comprehension of a situation than a wordy explanation. Hope explains more irrelevant thoughts than I cared to read about--most of which had no bearing on the story. Considering how very useless her "special" abilities are (unless you have a criminal tendency), this might be justified. The bad guys all seemed to think having her around was a wonderful idea. In light of the artillery at their disposal (supernatural and otherwise), I had to differ with them on that point.

"Personal Demon" is okay if you're a die-hard fan of KA and must build on your collection. But I wouldn't recommend it for anyone looking for a good example of her works.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8

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