From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up—Sarwat Chadda's fast-paced novel (Hyperion, 2009) combines modern London with a fantasy world of ghuls (vampire/ghoul), weres, the Grigori (fallen angels), the Knights Templar, Arthurian characters, and a dash of Harry Potter. Thanks to a prophesy, Bilquis (Billi) SanGreal is the only female member of the Knights Templar. Since she is also the youngest, she tries to combine school with a rigorous training and patrolling schedule which she resents. This makes her easy prey for the attention of Mike, a handsome and mysterious young man who appears to understand her better than anyone else. But Mike isn't what he appears. He's the Archangel Michael on a quest to bring forth his watcher brothers and sisters, trapped in the ether by Solomon's mirror—protected through the ages by the Templars. Filled with Biblical lore, magical words and symbols, and medieval history, the novel takes listeners on a roller-coaster ride, leading to a tumultuous denouement. Anna Flosnik does an excellent job of voicing all the characters. A highly recommended listen.—
Suanne Roush, Osceola High School, Seminole, FL Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Review
Starred review. Chadda's fast-paced debut introduces 15-year-old Billi SanGreal, who is drafted into the modern remnants of the once-great Knights Templar by her fanatical, emotionally distant father, leader of the order ("How was school?" he asks while she's still "covered in slimy gore" after an exorcism). Though skilled in weaponry and educated in obscure religious history, Billi is a poor fit for the Templars: the lone girl in an otherwise all-male organization, of Muslim extraction but surrounded by Christians and lacking the unblinking ruthlessness required by the eternal war between the Knights and the forces of darkness. Nonetheless, she finds herself standing between the Angel of Death, Michael, who has become blinded by imagined glories of enforced salvation, and the multitude of innocents Michael would happily slaughter in the name of God. Scenes of spiritual warfare are gripping (and often gruesome), as is the undercurrent of supernatural romance. Chadda offers an original take on familiar creatures like vampires, the undead and fallen angels, but it's Billi's personality and tumult of emotions that will keep readers hooked. A promising beginning to both this series and Chadda's career. Ages 13-up. --Publishers Weekly, September 7, 2009
This fast-paced debut novel introduces readers to a modern London in which humanity is threatened by the hungry dead. The Knights Templar, an ancient order now operating in secret, is all that stands between the regular world and supernatural threats-and loner Billi is the only girl ever to become a member of that order. It is not a position of honor, however: her father, leader of the Order, demands ridiculously high standards without ever giving her a word of support, comfort, or love. Instead, he praises Kay, once Billi's best friend and possible love interest. She longs for a normal, simple life, which will have some readers sympathizing with her, while others more familiar with the genre will realize long before Billi does that normal is well outside her reach. Urban fantasy readers will also see plot twists before they are resolved. Chadda does an excellent job of drawing on Christian, Jewish, and Muslim folk stories to create the mythology for this world. Billi's mother's Muslim background and her father's oddly secular Christian devotion provide the book with a feeling of authenticity, as those traditions are meshed over the course of the book. The open ending leaves room for sequels, and Billi's growth makes her a more appealing narrator for future installments. Devil's Kiss will certainly find an audience, despite its prickly narrator.-Alana Joli Abbott, James Blackstone Memorial Library, Branford, CT --School Library Journal, November 2009
Forget the jacket blurb's come-on to paranormal-romance fans, this is an old-fashioned high-octane horror tale, dripping with ghastly portents, eldritch violence and an embittered heroine facing down the looming Apocalypse. Billi SanGreal has been training since childhood to fight alongside the remnants of the Knights Templar, the mysterious medieval order founded to oppose the dark powers. Now dwindled to a handful of battle-scarred men, none is more grim and cold than their master, her father. Billi takes comfort in her friendship with the young psychic Kay, but when he carelessly invokes a long-dormant evil, she must confront a force more powerful, more monstrous, more tempting than anything she could imagine. The glorious splendor of the Templar mythos is deftly contrasted with the squalid dreariness of their present, illuminating the refuge they find in the cleaner, simpler problems of ghouls and werewolves and the fleeting beauty of innocence they so brutally defend. But Billi, in her anger-from simmering to white-hot-and her pain-physical, emotional and spiritual-dominates the story with gritty, fierce humanity. Love, loss, betrayal and sacrifice, leavened only with the bittersweet grace of doing what must be done. Deus vult! (Horror. 12 & up) --Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2009
