Demon Song

January 24, 2011
Adams (a joint pseudonym for C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp) delivers a satisfying third Celia Graves adventure to follow 2010's Blood Song and Siren Song. Bodyguard by profession, vampire by accident, and siren by heritage, Celia leads a life of excitement and turmoil, struggling to control her bloodlust and dark impulses even as she discovers new abilities. Her attempts to maintain a normal existence are stymied by anti-vampire prejudice, a death curse, and a demonic invasion that could destroy the world. Her only hope lies in finding a set of long-lost artifacts, deciphering the prophecies of a deceased friend, and persuading quarrelsome allies to work together. This series just keeps getting better, maintaining a delicate balance between urban fantasy and paranormal romance. The emotional components are just as strong as the action sequences, set against an increasingly interesting world.

January 15, 2011

Adams' (the joint pseudonym for C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp) third outing for fearless, supernaturally powered professional bodyguard Celia Graves (Siren Song, 2010, etc.).

In the book's Los Angeles, ordinary folk must coexist with magic, supernatural beings (sirens, vampires, werewolves, you name it), psychic powers, ghosts, warrior priests and modern technology—a preposterously unstable concoction for which Adams compensates, or distracts from, with a richly involving back story. Celia, having discovered in a previous episode that she's part siren, also acquired a progressive vampirism that urges her to chomp necks. This she resists. However, because of a childhood curse, she tends to involve her friends in her adventures, which means they often get psychically or physically damaged. Thanks to her siren heritage, she's a man-magnet, what with sometime boyfriend and mage Bruno DeLuca and new love interest John Creede, another mage. She tends to attract demons. And in an unresolved case, murder victim Vicki Cooper, now a helpful ghost, bequeathed her millions, though even Vicki doesn't know why. Then trouble breaks out at the California State Paranormal Treatment Facility, where mad or bad supernaturals are confined. This eruption of demons, barely contained by Celia, John, Bruno and their allies, is but a harbinger of much worse to come. A rift between the demonic dimension and our own—both opened and then sealed by Celia's royal siren ancestors—is reopening, and its hellraiser-in-chief seems personally to have it in for Celia.

Notwithstanding the absurd backdrop, a warmly involving, action-packed yarn whose heroine is engagingly tough, vulnerable, principled and passionate in equal measure.

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