Nocturnal Book Reviews

3.5/5
Won on Firstreads as Incubus by Carol Goodman UK edition, The Demon Lover requested as egalley from Random House through Netgalley.

Yes, my Dear Reader, the confusion is all mine. Would you know by looking at Incubus and The Demon Lover that the book is one and the same? I didn't. So what happened? I've won Incubus and then requested The Demon Lover from Netgalley. :))) Laugh now, I won't begrudge you.

Sometimes I really don't understand the publishers. Could they at least give any indication that this is the same book by not changing the authors name for the US cover?

Anyway, let's get back to the important bits which is what I thought of the book itself. And yes, I've read half of each book just to make sure.

It's not a particularly straightforward book. I was getting confused a lot with the main character. She is literally hot and cold. I don't think she knew what she wanted or what she was doing.

The supporting characters however were marvelous. Carol Goodman created this frozen in time, winter-ish fairytal-ish environment which I never get tired of. There are fairies, witches, and magical doors between worlds, old haunted houses, noir-ish writers, Bela Lugosi type of vampires and even Mediterranean magical creatures.

The evil is very predictable, but the whole Gothic spirit of the book I thought was marvelously done. I didn't really care about Callie and her incubus, but her familiar mouse Rolph was adorable!

So, if you like Gothic literature and its atmosphere it will be a comfort read for you, but if you want to read a paranormal romance, I wouldn't call this book one. This is something else entirely.