The Devil’s Due (a Morgan Kingley novel book 2) by Jenna Black (book review).

A demon in your head is worth two in the bed and ‘The Devil’s Due’ is an interesting take on forced possession. Our heroine, Morgan Kingsley, makes her living as an exorcist licenced to remove demons from unwilling hosts. This is a world where demons have crossed over from their dimension and are riding in human hosts. This should only be done on a voluntary basis but hey, they are demons after all.

Morgan Kingsley has her own personal hitchhiker. Renting out the spare room in her head, she has one sexy lodger called Lugh, who occasionally takes full possession of her motor functions usually to help her stay alive after he’s put her on danger in the first place. Working as a sort of team, they investigate a different case in each novel but they all connect together and the overall plot biggie is that Morgan’s lodger is the Demon King himself and he’s in her protective custody.

Our sexy exorcist takes on the case of the apparently acquiescent possessed young man. His mother knows that he would never have submitted willingly when he was a rabid member of God’s Wrath, a violently anti-demon group, likely to burn the host and the demon, group. In the ten days his parents were away, the demon moved in and changed the decor. Now Mrs Claudia Brewster wants the fiend out and she hopes Morgan is the woman to take it on.

The banter and attraction between the landlady and her lodger is part of the fun and the mind-bending nature of it all is emphasised when King Lugh-ie attempts to seduce her. As he’s in her head already, he just knows what will attract her and likes to appear in some fetching outfits. However, the added complication of a long time and confused boy-friend called Brian and her distrust of demon kind per se mean this relationship might not have much future.

This is quite a short paperback but it gets straight on with the plot and is entertaining. Very much fitting in with the current obsession with ‘good’ demons makes ‘The Devils Due’ a cross between romantic and detective fiction a sub-genre known as urban fantasy and Black does it very well. Devilish fun.

Sue Davies

October 2013

(pub: Bantam Dell. 317 page paperback. Price: $ 6.99 (US), $ 8.99 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-440-24492-9)

check out website: www.bantamdell.com and www.JennaBlack.com