Demon At My Door

Michelle A.Valentine
Gothic outcast Natalie Sugarman bartered her soul for her dying mother’s life sixteen years ago to a boy demon that could stop time. Now, days before her twenty-first birthday, the lifelines on her palms are slowly vanishing, and she knows it’s just a matter of time before Satan’s little helper collects.
Natalie’s tried numerous times to kill the demon and regain control of her soul’s destiny, but she always falls short. When she decides to try and gain the element of surprise for her next attempt, Natalie seeks answers about his location from a freaky, glowing-eyed fortuneteller. Creeped out by the psychic’s methods, she bolts from the reading and misses the warning that the demon who stole her soul is always closer than she thinks.
After some strange incidents with her new boyfriend, including a hot, levitating sex session, she realizes he’s the grown-up version of her little nightmare and he’s returned to collect on their deal. Natalie must figure out how to win her soul back from the demon before her lifeline completely disappears and she becomes his forever—even if that means making a deal to damn three other souls to take her place.
I first came across Michelle A Valentines’s work via Emma Davies( read her awesome blog here). Tweeting as @BookAngel_Emma she shared how much she was enjoying reading Rock The Band( Black Falcon 1.5), the sequel novella to Michelle’s Rock The Heart (Black Falcon series book 1). Having followed Emma for some time and enjoyed tweeting with her about our mutual love of contemporary new adult fiction, particularly the tattooed bad boys contained within, I knew that I had very similar tastes to her. I immediately downloaded and read Rock The Heart in one evening , followed by Rock The Band the following night.
Gutted to realize that I would have to wait until March for the continuation of the Black Falcon series, I read the excerpt of Demon At My Door, contained at the end of Rock The Band, with some interest. Impressed with the imagery and world building contained within that sample chapter, I set about emailing the author to request an advance copy, for the purpose of review.
With just 200 pages, Demon At My Door was a fast paced paranormal romance just begging to be read in a single sitting. Who was I to disappoint? 😉
The plot itself is fairly predictable, the blurb pretty much covers the major points of the story, and as readers we are provided with some very obvious clues. Never the less I was immediately drawn in to Natalie’s story. Rather than be frustrated at Natalie’s obliviousness of Rick’s true nature I found myself racing though the pages to find out when “the penny would drop” (Michelle’s timing was spot on in this regard *laughs evilly *) and how on earth she was going to win back her soul and straighten up the mess her life had become.
As with her contemporary romance series, what Michelle really excelled at was creating chemistry between her main characters. So much so that I found myself rooting for Natalie to get over Stew, the football playing boy next door, and get it on already with Rick, the soul stealing demon who’s interference had over shadowed most of her childhood (what can I say, I love a bad boy).
While the book finished in the absence of a cliffhanger, Michelle obviously has much more in store for Natalie, Rick and Stew, in what promises to be the start a fun new series from the self published author.
Verdict: Demon At My Door was a quick, easy and enjoyable read. I won’t hesitate to download a future sequel. Meanwhile, the count down to the release of Rock My Bed (Black Falcon book 2) continues.
Reviewed by Caroline