Well, it's that time of year again. Somewhere between late spring and early summer when the latest installment of Kelley Armstrong's bestselling "Women of the Otherworld" series comes out. This year "Personal Demon" is added to the 8 novel series, featuring Hope Adams, a half demon who's father is Lucifer (not Satan-different person altogether) and has a thing for chaos. A thing that sometimes takes over her better side and just wants to enjoy watching people be tortured or dieing. Like Jamie Vegas in "No Humans Involved" while Hope has a power, it can do nothing to defend her-expect warn her that danger (chaos is coming.) Luckily the chaos alarm keeps there from being a lot of wining about being powerless like Jamie indulged in.
Needless to say Hope isn't completely comfortable with this power. But she's had some help to deal with it, the interracial supernatural council and Karl, the latest edition to the Werewolf pack (who can also be found in books "Bitten" "Broken" and "No Humans Involved") and until recently, a romantic interest of Hope's. But after one night of passion Karl ran out, leaving the only tie between the two a mutual debt to the Cortez Cabal for getting them out of a spot of trouble.
Hope's just trying to work on a completely false werewolf story for the tabloid she writes for when Benicio Cortez decides the time has come to call in the debt. He wants Hope to infiltrate a supernatural gang operating in Miami and access their organization and threat to the Cabal. It's a strange request because, well, almost nothing has the power to threaten a cabal (think mob with magic), especially not a half dozen young supernaturals pulling off relatively small heists. But Hope, seeing the potential for guilt free Chaos takes the gig.
It all seems like harmless, well organized chaos inducing fun to Hope until (just after Karl arrives to help out) two of the gang members-including a potential love interest of Hope's- disappear, apparently kidnapped by the Cortex Cabal. This development brings in Lucas Cortez (the youngest son of Benicio and unwilling heir to the family business), along with his wife Paige to town for support. Soon everyone is doubting if the gang had inside Cabal connections, if one of Benicio's older passed over and power hunger sons is helping them....and if so, what's the big plan?
Of course this is all combined with lots of sex, supernatural fights, sleuthing, musings on being a supernatural but never being able to tell you're parents...the usual for an Armstrong book.
But there are a couple of big changes since "No Humans Involved." For one thing, half of this book is narrated by Lucas. Yup, that's right-a guy. Considering the events in this book it's not really a bad decision but it is breaking an established pattern and certainly had me confused at first. In the end though, while Lucas never really did come off in his narrative as I had pictured him, it was a decent portrayal.
Now that I think of it, it's not like I would be adverse to a "Men of the Otherworld" series.
Also I had a pretty hard time reconciling the Karl in this book (a werewolf jewel thief whose gruff but sensitive, loving, protective, worried about the girl he loves) with the one who committed such heinous acts in "Bitten." I mean people (and not so completely people) change but this is kind of a drastic 360. Although I guess being in love...Whatever. I still have a hard time seeing him as any kind of hero (interested in the gig or not.)
And sadly, this series has reached the point where not only can novels in this series not stand alone, but if you're not following along with the (free!) short stories on the author's website, there are going to be parts you won't understand. Nothing major, but with a cast of characters this large and each book about a year apart in time, things happen and not all of that can be stuffed into the books. Of course publishing a short story anthology could fix this....
As always. I advise new comers to start at the beginning with "Bitten" no matter how attractive a later book sounds because there will be research to do to understand characters, back stories, supernatural stuff...
In the end I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would. While "Personal Demons" does get off to a kind of lame start, once things heat up, well, things heat up. I can't say this will make my top five for the series but it had much more depth than the slightly shallow "No Humans Involved" and it's certainly not going to deter me from purchasing the next book, "Living with the Dead". However if like me, you prefer the early books to the later one's, you might want to wait until this comes out in a cheaper edition.
Four point five stars. (The extra added for the oh so cute little tidbit about Clay and Elena's twins!)
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