Book Review of Blood of the Demon by Rosalie Lario

Title:  Blood of the Demon

Author:  Rosalie Lario

Release Date:  August 2nd, 2011

Genre:  Adult Paranormal Romance

Keegan lives to exact revenge on the evil demon who sired and abused him. When his father devises a plan to bring on the apocalypse, he and his three half-brothers, interdimensional bounty hunters for the Elden Council, are charged with capturing and delivering their father for punishment.

Art gallery owner Brynn Meyers has no idea that her ability to read memories embedded in objects and drain people of their life force means she has demon ancestry. Unfortunately for Brynn, she’s also the key to raising an ancient zombie army, which puts her on every demon’s Most Wanted List.

And no one wants her more than Keegan’s father.

Keegan must protect Brynn from his father by any means necessary, but he’ll have to learn to harness the other half of his genetics—the far deadlier, uncontrollable half—when he starts to fall for the one woman standing between him and the vengeance he so desperately seeks. The one woman he’ll never be able to resist.

Summary from Goodreads.com

My Review:  This is the first book I have read from Entangled Publishing and if all of them are this good I know this is not going to be a publisher I forget!  It is also the first book I have read by Rosalie Lario and I already want to get my hands on the next book in the series.  Okay, I am jumping ahead of myself, let me back up and tell you about this book before I talk about the next one.

Blood of the Demon is the first book in Rosalie’s Demons of the Infernum series.  The series focuses on the lives of four half-demon brothers who live in New York and are fighting to rid the world of evil.  They serve a council from their world that sends them on missions to protect various planets and its inhabitants.  For the purposes of Blood of the Demon, the brothers are protecting Earth from a sadistic demon who also happens to be their father, Mammon.

The brother we get the pleasure of getting to know in this book is Keegan.  He is the oldest of the four and the one who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders.  He is extremely protective of his three brothers and often feels like he let them down by not getting them all away from their monstrous father fast enough.  Keegan is very hard on himself and does not give into his own needs, ever.  Until Brynn.  She is the owner of an art gallery and has a couple talents of her own.  She can drain human energy and she has the ability to get the history of an inanimate object just by touching it.  She is thrown into Keegan’s world when he kidnaps her, but tells her he is doing it to protect her.  Brynn wants to believe him when he tells her it is for her benefit, but she still has a nagging feeling she is not getting the whole story out of him or his brothers.

In true paranormal romance fashion we get the viewpoints of our main characters Brynn and Keegan, but there are a couple of other characters who we get to peek inside briefly.  The brothers take over a couple of times and even the villain, Mammon, gets to tell his side of the story.  The multiple viewpoints are always something I love about this genre and this book was no exception. With the various perspectives we get many facets of the story and it only entices you to read further.  It also helps the reader to form an attachment to all four brothers, not just Keegan, which I am sure will be beneficial in future books.  The brothers share witty banter that had me laughing out loud.  Their relationship served as the comic relief on multiple occasions.  It is also clear that they are a very tight knit group and would do anything for each other.  I quickly grew attached to the foursome and at the climax of the story I found myself getting choked up because of their close bond and the way they were reacting to the situation they found themselves in.  It was easy to see how much they meant to each other and get caught up in the emotional roller coaster with them.

Since Blood of the Demon is the first in series, Rosalie does take time to explain the world, but the explanations do not bog down the story or slow the plot.  Sometimes first books in series can take too much time to explain the world so, the story building and character connection is lost.  This is not case for this book.  I was fully engrossed in the mythology and soaking up every detail that Rosalie gave to us.

Keegan and Brynn are faced with threats at every turn.  They barely have time to catch their breath while they are fighting for their lives, and each other.  The action and the romance in this novel are balanced perfectly.  Rosalie gives you just enough of each to keep you satisfied, but always wanting just a little bit more.  It all leads up to a heart pounding climax that literally had me on the edge of my seat as it unfolded.  I started and finished this book in the same day because there was no way I was going to put it down without knowing how it all came to a close.

Overall, Blood of the Demon is a fantastic new paranormal romance series that I am dying to get more of.  Rosalie left us with resolution for now, but set up the next book nicely.  Luckily, I only have to wait until for September for it to come out, which is awesome because I have not had enough of these brothers and cannot wait to dive back into their world.  If you are looking for a new paranormal romance that has intriguing new mythology, exhilarating action and some scorching hot romance, then look no further than Blood of the Demon.

FTC:  I received this book from the publisher through Net Galley (Thank you!)