Bedeviled (Signet Eclipse) [Paperback]

Maureen Child (Author)

Book Description

Series: Signet Eclipse | Publication Date: January 6, 2009

Maggie Donovan isn’t interested in overthrowing a Faerie queen. She barely had time to kill the demon that devoured her fiancé. Then she comes home to find a scrumptious hunk in her living room who informs her that saving the Otherworld just happens to be her destiny, and Maggie realizes she may not have a choice

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nothing in painter Maggie Donovan's ordinary Southern California life prepares her to find a demon devouring her ex-boyfriend. In the ensuing struggle, the smart-mouthed heroine accidentally gets sprinkled with magic dust from a broken pendant and develops mysterious powers. Levitation may be handy for painting tall store windows, but her new status comes with a lot of baggage, including hunky Fae warrior Culhane and ugly pixie Bezel. They want to train Maggie for an upcoming battle against the evil Faery queen, Mab, who has imprisoned all the males of the Otherworld. Unimpressed, Maggie clings to her destiny-free zone until her growing magical abilities and feelings for Culhane push her to take on the queen. Child (A Fiend in Need) throws in enough zest and humor to make up for a rather anticlimactic final showdown. (Jan.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Artist Maggie Donovan is reduced to painting holiday scenes on store windows in Castle Bay, California. The only thing that makes her life exciting is chasing after her 12-year-old niece while her sister attends a drum-banging festival to get her chakras aligned. However, unbeknownst to her, Maggie is the One chosen to overthrow the evil faery queen, Mab. Culhane, the greatest (and hunkiest) faery warrior of them all, is given the mission to protect Maggie and help her in her quest. Naturally, Maggie is skeptical. But when unexplainable things begin to happen to her, such as witnessing her feckless fiancé being devoured by a demon, Maggie believes. Of course, a novice champion of faery folk needs a trainer, and Maggie finds her Yoda in the perpetually cranky pixie Bezel. Finally acknowledging her destiny, Maggie reaches deep for her inner heroine. Clap if you believe in faeries, and even if you don’t, you can applaud Child’s heartwarming, hilarious adventure, a ticket to the fantastic Otherworld and back. --Shelley Mosley

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Signet (January 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451225767
• ISBN-13: 978-0451225764
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,520,742 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

USA Today best selling author Maureen Child is the author of more than ninety romance novels and novellas. Maureen is a five time nominee for the prestigious Rita award from Romance Writers of America.

One of her novels, A POCKETFUL OF PARADISE, was made into a CBS-TV movie called The Soul Collector, starring Melissa Gilbert, Bruce Greenwood and Ossie Davis.

Maureen was not only on the Texas set to watch her characters come to life in front of the cameras, she was also tossed into the last scene by her husband and the producer, who both thought this would be a fun way to humiliate an author!

When her kids were small, Maureen started writing as not only a way to stay sane, but in the hopes of finding a job she could do and stay at home with them. Sanity is still an issue, but she did manage to write her way into a career she wouldn't trade for anything.

Over the years, she's written under lots of different names and she prefers the term 'pseudonym' to 'alias'. As Ann Carberry, she wrote western historical romances. As Kathleen Kane, she wrote not only Americana romances, but western paranormal romances as well. As Sarah Hart, she wrote one really spectacular western paranormal that is still one of her favorites. And once, Ann Carberry even wrote a Victorian historical which she absolutely loved doing.

Under her own name, Maureen writes short contemporary novels for Silhouette Desire--books she loves to write because of their fast pace and condensed story telling. Maureen is also writing funny, contemporary paranormal romances for NAL and darker paranormal stories for Silhouette Nocturne.

Life is busy but when she isn't writing you can find Maureen sitting under her 'thinking tree', coming up with new ideas for even more stories. When she isn't dreaming up a new book or writing a current one, Maureen loves to travel. Her favorite vacation spot is Ireland, with Scotland coming in a very close second. She and her husband love a good road trip and Maureen's looking forward to the day when she can actually drive to Ireland. Talk about the best of both worlds!

Maureen lives with her family in Southern California and loves to hear from her readers. Visit her online at www.maureenchild.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars It bored me, April 5, 2009

By 

CMG "cmme" (southeast) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bedeviled (Signet Eclipse) (Paperback)

Sorry but I'm not agreeing with anyone who gave this a 4 or 5 stars. I usually like Mareen Child's books, but this one bored me into a coma. The main character was a pain with all her denials and for the love of little green apples, if your floating in the air, duh, wouldn't you agree that you are changing? It took her half the book to agree that, whoa maybe she's becoming different. I found more to entertain me in the niece than in the main characters. So, I'm not keeping this and will not be getting the second one in the series since I couldn't stand Maggie. And as for the hero? Well, he was not as interesting as the pixie, who was a secondary character. The hero did nothing but deny that he couldn't like Maggie and only wanted to use her for his own ends. So, this was a very blah book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This book was so BORING!, December 17, 2009

By 

Cin Dee (Texas) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bedeviled (Signet Eclipse) (Paperback)

This book just dragged, it was so boring. There are a lot of great paranormal/urban fantasy books out there, that are so good you can hardly put the book down, this book was dullsville.

I will never buy a book from this authors again. I'm really starting to wonder if those reviewers that write the super long reviews get paid to lie and say great things about not so great books, because the great reviews were what made me decide to waste my money on this loser.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This light paranormal series starter has a touch of romance, January 11, 2009

By 

melindeeloo (sb,ca) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Bedeviled (Signet Eclipse) (Paperback)

Glass artist Maggie's life has fallen into a rut, and little does Maggie know that she is on a collision course with destiny. But all that changes the day that Maggie goes to take `his stuff' back to her boring ex-fiancé and finds him being eaten by a demon who had stopped for a little `fast food'. On the verge of being demon chow herself, Maggie somehow manages not only to dust the toothy fiend but also to absorb the stolen Fae power that was in the demoness' possession. Soon Maggie is glowing and this is just the sign that Fae warrior Culhane has been waiting for. Culhane has been watching over Maggie for years because, unknown to her, not only is she half Fae, but also she is the one `destined' to be able to defeat Queen Mab, the Fae leader who has turned male Fae like Culhane into second class citizens. Maggie finds Culhane equal parts annoying and ultra-sexy though she wants nothing to do with Culhane's plans. But Culhane will use whatever mean necessary to insure that Maggie fulfills her destiny to lead his people to a new age - with him pulling the strings.

Bedeviled is hard to classify, it has a touch of humor and is not quite urban fantasy (no 1st person narrative here) though it is not quite paranormal romance either since there isn't a happily ever after for Maggie yet. And despite Maggie's overwhelming attraction to Culhane I wasn't exactly rooting for them to hook up here. Culhane is so intent on his purpose and using Maggie to achieve it, that he is an ambivalent hero. Fortunately, even though Maggie wants Culhane, she never fully trusts him and is quick to give him a piece of her mind when his actions as less than honorable.

I liked Maggie and admired her determination, but my favorite character in the story was Eileen, Maggie's twelve year old niece. Eileen added a great deal to Maggie's education in all things Fae through her research on the internet ala Google. And her spouting off little known statistics "45% of all knowledge is gained by eavesdropping", along with her very adult insight. In addition to Eileen, the cast of this one also included: Maggie's' new age sister who laments that non-believer Maggie is the one who gets to turn Fae (the sister also the only one in the story to get a little Faerie tail though Culhane does give Maggie a taste of what sizzles between them), an ugly as sin and crotchety to boot Pixie whose job it is to train Maggie for the big battle, Maggie's friend Claire who has `Visions', and a whole gaggle of gorgeous Fae males.

Ultimately though, the best part of Bedeviled is that Maggie takes her destiny in hand, not only in defeating Mab but also in her determination to keep her life afterward and to set her own terms for her queenship. And since things were left open with Culhane, it will be interesting to see where Child's takes Maggie next. Her story continues in Beguiled.