Customer Reviews

The Demon You Know (The Others, Book 3)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I like Christine Warren's books. Wolf at the Door and She's No Faerie Princess were fun, fast and HOT. So I was looking forward to The Demon You Know. Unfortunately this book didn't come together as well.

First the good. The world is very well defined. The Others, after thousands of years of hiding, have been forced out into the open. Protests and riots occur on a near daily basis and normal human beings like the heroine Abby are trying to reconcile their long held beliefs with the new order of things. The support and reoccuring characters are excellent and alpha men abound for us girls to enjoy.

Rule-the hero of this piece is a good Alpha demon who is in NYC to find a fiend that has run away from Below. The Fiend has a spell which will allow the bad demons to bring perpetual darkness to the world. Abby stumbles into a riot and winds up possessed by the missing Fiend-Lou. The cast of characters, including Abby's very hunky brother, save the world.

The bad-Abby. Or more specifically how the author perceives Abby. Abby is, as she defines herself, the girl next door's younger plain sister. She's the girl you come home to. The one who has the comfy couch and the popcorn that's buttered just right. She's quiet, unassuming and comfortable to be around. (Linda Howard nails this character in Sarah's Child) But the author tries to make her Spunky-which is exactly what Abby isn't. There's a sex scene that occurs because Abby blows her top and yells at Rule and I found myself going WTF? Abby doesn't blow up. This Abby would cry or do yoga or something like that.

The chemistry between Abby and Rule is basically non existant because Christine Warren doesn't let Rule fall in love with what's great about Abby. She insists instead that Abby be something she's not, and so at the end of the book I'm busy writing a divorce scenerio in my head.

One other thing-Abby's possessed by a male demon who conviently disappears everytime the two characters want to have sex. I found myself feeling a little creeped out by the whole voyer scenerio.

Read this book for the secondary characters, the world building and the enjoyable prose. Just don't look for the romance of the century.

I have read 2 of Warren's other books: Wolf at the Door and She's Not a Faerie Princess. I don't remember the first one that well, but I think I liked it. I liked She's Not a Faerie Princess a lot, so I was looking forward to this 3rd book in the series. But I could hardly get through it because the heroine, Abby, was the most immature, selfish, annoying person ever. SPOILERS AHEAD! Even though she knew she was possessed by a demon whom she could hear in her head, she persistently tried to get away from the only people who could help her because they dared to insist she had to stay safe in the club. This went on for almost the entire book, with her literally kicking and stomping her feet and acting like a totally spoiled 2 year old. Even after Tess showed her a vision of what would happen, she kept up her selfish ways. I could in no way understand how Rule, who is a great guy/demon, could be attracted to her. It did not make any sense.

In addition, the amount of "cute quipping" was so exaggerated throughout the entire book, no matter what was going on, as to seem forced and inappropriate. After awhile, you just wanted to say "enough already!"

And there were several errors that should have been caught by the editors that changed the meaning of the sentence. For example, on page 311, Abby and Lou are having a conversation in her head and she thinks to him "If fiends aren't supposed to be able to go out into the dark, how come I could?" (She is possessed by the fiend Lou.) It should have said just the opposite, that fiends could not go out into the LIGHT. This happens several other times also.

So all in all, despite the presence of many likable characters, especially Rule, I had to force my way through the book because I disliked Abby so much. She was like scraping fingernails along a chalkboard. That said, I will probably still read a couple of the Others books, after I carefully check the reviews for obnoxious heroines.

I may be a man, and not just a man, but a preacher man, but even I like to step off the pulpit, loosen my cassock, pour myself some non-consecrated wine, and temporarily trade in one book about good, evil, lust and the supernatural for another, but set in modern-day New York.

The third in Christine Warren's Other series, "The Demon You Know" follows the nondescript and somewhat bland Abby Baker as she follows a hot lead that leads to an even hotter conflict between the Others, supernatural beings from the demon world with the power to save or destroy humanity. I, of course, am also out to save humanity, but not from demons. Unless you mean personal demons, but not a literal personal demon, like Lou, who possesses Abby to hide from Rule, another, powerful demon who is hunting him. I mean demons like addiction and moral weakness, not demons from supernatural realms who possess you and make you do crazy things that would normally be some kind of venial sin if they weren't so fun. Lou holds the key to humankind's destruction, and Rule must somehow stop him while keeping Abby, a mortal whom Rule has become attracted to, safe.

Abby begins the book as one kind of young woman, but as she becomes possessed by both a demon his lusty ways, turns into another kind of young woman. The kind of young woman I am usually warning about in life but rooting for in fiction. Better though, to live out ones desires to experience demon love in a book than to do so in real life, which I hear is frowned upon by my superiors.

You will not be frowning, however, after reading Christine Warren's latest provocative, witty and thrilling novel that will leave you wishing you could blame your own uninhibited, wild, and slightly risque behavior on, dare I say it, the demon you know.

Abby Baker is a research assistant for a local TV station. When she's on a riot scene to help cover a story, she becomes possessed by a fiend Lou (a not so bad guy). Lou is on the run from Uzkiel (bad guy), a fiend who wants a special spell that will give him an advantage in his fight with the demons (good guys). Lou had been acting as an informer for the demon Rule (good guy), and now Rule is searching for him since he went missing. Rule finds Lou in Abby's body, and immediately takes Abby into protective custody at the Vircolac Club. The club is owned by Graham Winters, the alpha of the werewolf pack. The pack helps to protect Abby, while Rule searches for Uzkiel. We see many of the characters we know from other books--Rafe, Tess, Missy, Graham--and they help in the fight against Uzkiel.

The story started a bit slow but then picked up around chapter five. Overall I enjoyed the storyline, the main character Rule and the supporting cast like Noah, Samantha, Missy, and Rafe. However, Abby is one of the worst lead female characters I've read recently. Not only is she not likable, the author is not consistent in the way she portrays the character. Abby starts out as a timid doormat of a character. Then she makes an idiotic decision--putting her life and others in danger. Afterwards she shows herself to be whiny and self centered. Then she's a complete bit*h, screaming at Rule for things that he didn't cause and can't control, which was inconsistent for how she was portrayed in the beginning. I liked Rule in the Faerie book, and was very disappointed to see him matched off with such a poor character. The romance didn't make any sense to me. I didn't see anything appealing in her character for him to care about. She's not even described as being physcially attractive, so I didn't get his attraction to her. Additionally, the dialogue was forced, awkward and frequently annoying.

Another thing was the copy of the book I read was FULL of typos and punctuation errors. It was extremely distracting. The worst ones were the constant mistakes in names--Bat for Bal, Rate for Rule, etc. At times I'd have to back up and reread a line trying to figure out who the author was talking about. I was reading a St Martins Press published version that was produced for Kindle. Very poor editing--someone didn't do their job. Also if the book had had a good line editor, the editor would have caught all the inconsistencies with Abby's character.

I've read most of the Others books and enjoyed several of them--mainly the later ones. If you've never read Christine Warren before, don't start with this book or book one. Instead, try One Bite with a Stranger, Wolf at the Door or Walk on the Wild Side. Those are some of the better ones in the series.

i feel warren took more time on this. there were far less typos and grammatical errors than in book 2, and i do think the book focuses more on the plot than the loads and loads emotioal b.s. that tends to become ultra redundant in her novels.

I don't really know how to feel about this series. There's nothing blatantly awful about it, but at the same time there isn't much to make it stand out from the numerous other paranormal romance novels I've read. The word average sums up this book perfectly--a mindless, predictable, but not unpleasant read.

In the continuity of the series, the "Others"--that is, vampires, werewolves, fae, and all manner of supernatural beings have made the choice to reveal themselves to the human populations, and are still fighting for equal rights etc. Rule is a demon--but demons in this series are for the most part counted among the good guys. Rule in particular makes a living protecting his world and the human world from the dark, dangerous, and more or less evil fiends. Abby is an ordinary human who ends up possessed by a fiend, Lou. Lou is in hiding because he possesses knowledge of a spell that could give power into the hands of the most sinister of all fiends. Abby is quickly taken under the protection of rule and his friends--a band that includes many Others introduced in previous books.

What made this book passable was the fact that with the possible exception of Abby, the characters are pretty likable. Problematically, I found myself focusing on and wondering more about the other couples--Graham and Missy, Tess and Rafe, etc, then the main couple. But at least they kept me reading. The central conflict and premise was really good--I liked the concept of the possession and the fiend hiding out in a human host. Rule is actually really hot and appealing, and I wish more of the book was from his point of view.

The problems begin with Abby. She's incredibly frustrating--selfish, whiny, childish, kind of helpless. I thought on more than one occasion that the story would have been twice as entertaining with a more well rounded and/or more appealing heroine. In her situation, the logical choice would be to accept protection where its offered, seek out information, and cooperate with the obviously stronger and more knowledgeable characters to come up with solutions. But Abby decides to defy at every turn, whine about what has happened to her, ask all the wrong questions, and generally cause more problems for everyone. This slows the plot to a crawl as we wait for her to quit complaining and get her act together. Her terrible personality is further demonstrated in her relationship with Rule. She knows she should accept his help, respect him, and appreciate him, but she repeatedly acts against him. She drags the book down and is just plain too stupid to live.

I do actually plan on continuing with this series, despite my complaints, because I liked the other two books well enough. With this book thrown in I feel that the series is just average, but I'd recommend trying it anyway. Wolf at the Door and She's No Fairy Princess are very decent reads.

So far, I love The Others series. I love Christine Warren's spin on supernatural meets America. What I did not love was the heroine of this book.

It is approximately two years after negotiations between the Council of Others and human governments began. Six weeks after the Unveiling, the announcement that witches and werewolves and vampires and fairies exist, and chaos has errupted. Us humans fear what we do not understand; we also try to kill what we fear. Abby Baker is covering a violent protest, where murder is a possibility, when she is suddenly possesed by a demon (a fiend to be more specific). The fiend turns out to be not-so-bright but very important in stopping the Apocolypse from occuring. To protect both possesed and possesor, fiend-hunter and demon Rule takes them both into custody.

Although I did not hate Abby, I did not particularly like her. Warren should have capitalized on Abby's situation more. I mean, she is possesed and being hunted by the real bad boys of the Underworld. Some more female buttkicking (and participation to say the least) would have been mighty entertaining. Instead, our heroine is forced to sit on her butt all day inside of a mansion. Whats worse, though, is that she showed some sort of prejudice against Others for at least half the book. Neither was I impressed with her new Other bff's. One was mean and bitchy while the other showed extreme stupidity (even if for the right reasons). Too often those around Abby were heavily influenced into completing stupid actions. Even her macho, big brother. At least one innocent body was permanantly harmed.

I loved Rule. And not in a merely platonic way. There was some deja vu with the make-out sessions - and his thoughts during them - but it does not change the fact that he was undeniably sexy. Six feet four inches of muscle with blonde hair and black eyes. He is surrounded by beautiful women yet only has eyes for the mousy, plain heroine. If those things are not sexy I do not know what is. Hats off to Warren; she sure knows how to build a hero.

I am neutral on the ending. The resolution with the end-of-the-world-as we-know-it was okay but we were left with one huge question about the future of our couple. Despite only giving this book 3 stars, I believe that buying it is sort of a stepping stone in completing the series.

I read the first two books in this series and really liked them. The female protagonists in the first two books were equal to the main male characters, are female role models, and stood up for themselves. I could understand their point of view. The female character in this book was very disappoining. She was short-sighted, selfish, and illogical. Could someone be that stupid, even if they had never come across any Others? Even when she and Rule got together (as if anything else could happen), I couldn't care less about them emotionally, and I skimmed the sex scenes. Anyone who knows me, knows it has to be bad then. Been there, done that, moving on to plot, but still not satisfied. So like the previous reviewer, right guy, wrong woman. How could she not see the writing on the wall, unless the author did it in order to have a plot.....? By the time she "smartens up" I don't even care. Too formulaic. So if you have never read anything by Christine Warren, please read the previous books. If you want to continue the series, be forewarned to be unsatisfied, or don't think you will miss anything to skip it and go on to the next (hopefully better? ) one.

Touching the wrong person at the wrong time gets Abby Baker into a heck of a situation as a fiend fugitive transfers itself into her body, along with a dangerous spell that other demons are after. Soon, she finds herself taken into protective custody by a pack of Lupines and various Others, including a good demon, Rule. Abby has to completely change what she has believed about otherworldly beings and adjust her attitudes rapidly as she deals with her unwanted guest and her protectors try to figure out how to handle the situation. The spell inside her is a time bomb, and it would not do at all for evil demons to get hold of it, since it is the magical equivalent of a nuclear bomb. The simplest solution would like as not kill Abby, something Rule finds himself increasingly unwilling to do.

**** Though initially I was worried that this would be a story too hot to handle, the one scene that qualified as such is easily read around, and the story that is left is fast paced and compelling. Abby's plight is one you will care about seeing solved, though aspects of it provide much amusement. The Demon You Know is a must read for urban fantasy fans. ****

Amanda Killgore

I prefer to read a series in order, and I didn't realize that I wasn't until the "Big Bad Wolf"
According to her web site, there are 4 books that in this series that haven't been published (they were written through Ellora's Cave and could have been downloaded, but they are no longer available).
The actual reading order of these books are:
1. One Bite with a Stranger (Regina & Dmitri... the first of the Fantasy Fix's)
2. Big Bad Wolf (Missy & Graham)
3. not yet published (Danice & Mac)
4. not yet published (Corinne & Luc)
5. not yet published (Tess & Rafe)
6. not yet published (Logan & Honor)
7. Wolf at the Door (Sullivan & Cassidy)
8. She's No Faerie Princess (Fiona & Tobias)
9. The Demon you Know (Abby & Rule)
10. Howl at the Moon (Noah & Samantha)
11. Walk on the Wild Side (Kitty & Marcus)
12. You're So Vein (Ava & Vladimir)
13. Born to be Wild (Eli & Josie)
According to the web site, these books can be read alone or in order, but after reading You're So Vein, where Missy & Graham are already together and then starting Big Bad Wolf, where Missy & Graham get together, was a little confusing at first.
I think I would have given this series a 5 star if it wasn't for that confusion.