Melanie's Book Reviews

The Demon’s Daughter is the first in Demon Outlaws series telling us the story of Airie, a young woman who believes she is the daughter of a priestess, handmaidens of the Goddesses who had abandoned the world to evade Demons their natural enemy… but as the prologue tells us, she isn’t…. she is in fact the offspring of a Goddess & a Demon, forbidden to exist and should have been killed at birth. The priestess has raised her in the way of the Goddesses on their sacred mountain but as the faith of mortals lessens so does their means to survive and Airie is forced to turn to theft bringing her to the attention of a bitter twisted ‘priestess’ who knows far too much about Airie’s true parentage and isn’t beyond manipulating anyone in her attempts to hold onto power. So, she hires the ‘Demon Slayer’ to capture Airie and bring her to justice. The Demon Slayer will not tolerate a demon to live or their spawn so he sets out to do what he does best thinking it will be easy but he is unprepared for the beautiful young woman he encounters and as the plot thickens, he must work out what is going on even if it challenges all of his beliefs and tightly built emotional walls.
I enjoyed this book, it is supposedly post-apocalyptic but to me it felt like a fantasy cowboy adventure featuring supernaturals and not something I would have necessarily have read if I had known but it did have its merits. I liked both Airie & Hunter, Airie had an innocence about her because of her seclusion on the Goddesses mountain which is the basis of her nature, she has been shielded from the harshness of their world and also hidden from the demons so she has never really developed her demon side although it does emerge from time to time. I thought she was quite level headed in spite of her heritage whereas Hunter was definitely more prejudiced towards her but with reason. The thing is with prejudice is it’s a judge now, think later thing and if you never allow your prejudices to be challenged, it will never change… which Hunter will find out and I liked that his character got to go through that. Normally Hunter would have killed Airie on sight but something stops him this time and he is forced to confront his own demons when his feelings for her change. I thought their relationship was sweet and gave some happiness & hope to an otherwise dreary existence. I would have liked more romance in this but was satisfied with what we got.
The storyline was really good, I like secret children stories and love reading the big reveal. We know from the get go whose child she is but knowing that she is the daughter of the biggest, baddest demon of them all is a major plus and when you put that with her Goddess mother… well there is bound to be drama. There is a lot going on the background as different people want to use her for their own ends, or kill her - let’s not forget that she’s even a payday for Hunter - so it seems everyone is out to get her and it all builds up to the inevitable meeting but there is lots going on between that. We have secrets & lies, power plays, assassins, mysterious companions & groups & battles …. That’s without the burgeoning relationship and getting to know the characters so it is filled with plot, the pacing was rather slow which put me off a bit but I was not bored. I suppose I was just put off by the time/place especially because as I said, it’s supposed to be post- apocalyptic so that means after present time but it didn’t read like that, it read like a past time book like hundreds of years ago and like a western which is a huge turn off for me – I was expecting more of an urban fantasy – but I did enjoy it, I am reading the sequel next and it helps that we have already been introduced to the main character and the world they live in.