The Demon Lover

October 10, 2011
Dr. Callie McFay, author of Sex Lives of the Demon Lovers, had no true intention of signing on as a professor of folklore during her interview at Fairwick College in upstate New York, but something about an old Victorian mansion off campus lures her to take up residence. As Callie sets up her new home, she is simultaneously seduced by a promising research project and a sexual creature she encounters in her dreams but cannot see or believe in during daylight. Eventually realizing that she must drive the demon away, Callie reluctantly seeks assistance from her neighbors and colleagues. She also begins to uncover her own heritage, which may explain her attraction to Fairwick and the incubus. In this surprisingly literary paranormal, Dark (a pseudonym for a “critically acclaimed literary suspense writer”) develops a complex, detailed world where magic, reason, and gothic literature enjoyably intersect.

November 15, 2011
Literary gothic novelist Carol Goodman (Arcadia Falls, 2010, etc.) takes on a Mary-Sueish pen name for this contemporary fantasy about an academic who discovers the truth behind the myths she studies. Cailleach "Callie" McFay, a newly minted doctorate and author of a popular book on demon lovers, accepts a teaching position at Fairwick College, a small liberal-arts college in upstate New York, based on the strength of their folklore department and a desire to buy a home near the college. The department is so strong because its information comes right from the source: Many faculty members and locals are fairies, witches, demons and other assorted magical beings, and Callie learns that she is among their number. Moreover, the home that so appealed to her is historically favored by an incubus. Although the incubus offers her hot supernatural sex at night, he's also leeching Callie of her life substance, so she performs a banishing ritual. The incubus seems to vanish, but not long afterward, Fairwick hires Liam, an attractive Irish poet, and he and Callie begin having mind-blowing sex. Could there be a connection between Liam and the incubus? (Is there actually any doubt?) "Juliet Dark" clearly knows what she's talking about when it comes to academia and folklore; it's odd that her protagonist seems to know so little about the latter, given that she's supposedly an expert in that area. The solutions to the central mysteries of the book are almost painfully obvious; however, the final confrontation between Callie and the incubus still holds some surprise and complex emotional texture. Steamy and nuanced, but ultimately a fairly predictable entrance into the already overcrowded paranormal romance genre.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 1, 2011

Her work as a scholar investigating the crossover between fairy tales and gothic romance, which led to her best-selling The Sex Lives of the Demon Lovers, helps secure Callie McFay an appointment at Fairwick College. There, life imitates art as she meets banshees, witches, and vampires and is visited nightly by a demon lover. The pseudonymous Dark, author of literary thrillers in her alternate life, seems to have hit on something nice and juicy for fans of Deborah Harkness's A Discovery of Witches. First in a trilogy.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 15, 2011
Callie McFay, with her newly minted PhD in folklore, isn't planning on leaving New York City for a teaching position. But she interviews anyway with small Fairwick College in a tiny Catskill village because of its great folklore program. Callie is also the author of a bestseller, Sex Lives of Demon Lovers, and once in Fairwick, she discovers that one of her favorite gothic authors, Dahlia LaMotte, had lived there. In fact, LaMotte's big old Victorian is vacant, and all her papers are still in the house. LaMotte's property exerts a pull on Callie, and she decides to take the job and the house. Delving into LaMotte's manuscripts, she discovers they are full of sensuous eroticism that did not make it into the published books. She also has dreams that offer some of the most compelling and authentic erotic descriptions found in mainstream fiction. Dark's letter-perfect gothic style is a satisfying tribute to previous gothic novels, and the paranormal elements, including incubi, fae, vampires, and witches, make this a stellar romance. Further, the relationships, suspense, academic politics, and village setting add up to vivid and enchanting world-building.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)