Review: Heart of the Demon by Cynthia Garner
Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.
Quick & Dirty: A good, fast paced storyline with some unique characters.
Opening Sentence: Zombies got a bad rap these days.
The Review:
Can you truly fall in love with someone if you both are lying to each other? Well apparently Finn and Keira can. They spend most of Heart of the Demon deceiving each other about their true feelings and motivations. They have both been tasked (by different people) to infiltrate a group that is bent on sending many aliens to earth in order to take over human bodies with the intent to overwhelm the human population with supernatural aliens. Finn and Keira must keep their jobs a secret because they don’t know who to trust and they most certainly do not want to be found out. Finn is a demon and Keira is a Fae and together they both have talents that this group can use to try and take over the world.
Heart of the Demon has a straightforward storyline, destroy the group while trying not to fall in love with each other. You know who the bad guy is, thankfully it is not obvious on how they will take him down or even how Finn and Keira will discover each other’s secret. (The overwhelming obviousness was my problem with the last novel, Secret of the Wolf.)
Sparks flew when Finn and Keira met in Secret of the Wolf. A few months have passed since then and they have seen each other off and on, but after a hot but awkward sexual encounter they have been playing it cool. They both act like they don’t want a lasting relationship when in fact they really do.
Finn is the ultimate bad boy. He wears black, leather and drives a motorcycle. He does whatever he wants and doesn’t care about the consequences. He is also quite the ladies man, taking home whatever woman he wants to for the night, but after his encounter with Keira other women just don’t do it for him anymore. Keira is the only woman on his mind and he wants her. He also worries about her safety after they join the group. Keira has been around for thousands of years and as someone who can con people very easily she has a hard time reading Finn’s thoughts for her. Keira is a pushy woman and she has no problem asking the questions on her mind even if she can’t get the answers she needs.
Finn and Keira truly offset the other. They both have a need for positive recognition. Finn just wants his dad to acknowledge him, anything for a “good job, son!” and Keira just wants someone to see her for herself and not the con woman that she used to be. She is tired of being used for other people’s gains. I truly liked Keira and Finn. I just wished they had a hotter, burning relationship than what they had. Although the relationship that they had did work well with the storyline.
I still really liked the uniqueness of the storyline that this series offers. I’m not sure what the plans are for the future of the series but I wouldn’t mind exploring more into someone who had just recently crossed over and has to deal with their new body. I think there may have been a set up for that at the end of Heart of the Demon.
Overall, I would recommend this to someone who likes the uniqueness of the world building but as plots go it is pretty standard fare.
Notable Scene:
She took a few breaths to regain some control, and said more quietly, “The first chance someone got, they used my past against me. The past I’d left behind, the one I’d wanted to forget. To escape. Yet here I am. Again.” She raised her gaze to his. “And you. You wanted a different future than what your father has mapped out for you. Yet here you are, trapped in the present, doing what you’ve always done.” Pain tore her insides to shreds. She gave an abrupt laugh, the sound as brittle as broken glass. “Aren’t we the pair?”
“We’re a pair of something, that’s for sure.”
FTC Advisory: Forever/Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group provided me with a copy of Heart of the Demon. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.