A Demon Bound by Debra DunbarMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
If I remember to look it up I can get the date I got this book, but, and the point – I somewhat randomly spotted this book, noticed it looked vaguely interesting and, a plus, it was free! Then I took a month or two before I got around to trying it. And I only did because I saw someone make a comment about the book and I suddenly realized that I owned it already so I should try it.
“Samantha Martin is an imp” – is the beginning of the book description. ‘Samantha Martin’ is kind of an odd name for a demon (which is what an imp is, and an imp is kind of a low-ish level demon), eh? But it is her name. Along with a bunch of others that occasionally come up. Names have meaning, see, and Martin has been acting as a human for the past 40 years (more on that later), as someone named ‘Samantha Martin’.
Why that name? What caused her to go with that in the human realm? Simple, the human she encountered and ‘owned’ went by that name. Angels bind, demons own – as gets repeated in the series. Here ‘own’ means that the demon literally ‘absorbs’ the person into themselves. They, the demons, then, in turn can ‘create’ bodies that match those they own – and not all that they ‘own’ are human (there’s one ‘cute’ scene, probably in a later book, wherein Samantha goes ‘jogging’ with a friend – and Samantha is in the ‘body’ of a cute doggie – because at some point she ‘owned’ a dog).
‘More on that later’ – Samantha has been on Earth for about 40 years now. But she’s not 40 herself, nor is this her first ‘vacation’ here on earth. No, see, demons like popping over every once in a while for ‘vacations’ wherein they do as much damage as they can and then flee back to Hel (one l there). For some reason, though, Sam decided to go ‘low level’, live as a human as much as possible, using as little of her power as possible. There’s a reason for that – the low use of power part. For, you see, millions of years ago Demons and Angels fought a war, to a draw. Demons went to Hel, Angels stayed in their realm. They ‘patrol’ earth, though, and kill any demon they spot on Earth while also watching over humans (over their ‘evolution’), and over werewolves (there may or may not be ‘others’ that they ‘strictly’ control, but it seems they only kill on sight demons and only strictly control werewolves – the ‘others’ is in how strict their control is, and how killable others are). There are also vampires, Elves, and others. Oh, and, to leave this paragraph near where I started, Sam herself is 1) a demon; 2) somewhere just short of a 1,000 years old.
On earth Sam works as a something of a slumlord, and lives near a hunky man named Wyatt. They have an ‘interesting’ relationship but they have just flirted so far (at the start of this book here). And, as noted, Sam tries to play down her use of demon power, not her being a demon, just her use of power. As in, she’ll purposely swerve to run over a squirrel, but try to avoid ‘owning’ it (which reveals power, and Angels can detect power usage), or hitting it with lightning (demons have differing powers).
Sam’s ‘vacation’ is interrupted, though, when her rental agent person (I’m not exactly sure of Michelle’s exact title/job function) attempts to introduce her to another person who has some property to unload (Candy). The party, Michelle, Sam, and Candy (along with some of Michelle’s friends) meet at a club. Roughly around the time Sam and Candy meet, in walks danger – in the form of Gregory the angel. Everyone immediately turns and gazes adoringly upon Gregory (Angels, asshole like as they may be, have that effect on people). Except for two – Sam literally crawls out of the place, trying to avoid being seen by the Angel, and by the time she gets outside, she realizes that Candy had followed her. Whereupon Candy ‘looks’ at Sam in a way that allows Sam to know Candy knows what Sam is. For whatever reason, Sam doesn’t know what Candy is, despite having lived a life that would seem destined to learn all prey and predators out there.
This is a long about way to come to – learning what Sam is, Candy takes advantage and basically blackmails Sam into helping her and . . . her . . . group (it’s in the description, but is it a spoiler? (view spoiler)). To help Candy and her group deal with a serial killer who is targeting Candy’s kind.
As I’ve seen here or there, one of the neat things of this book is that Sam is in fact a demon. And is allowed to act like one. She’s not some human who suddenly learns, after living as a human, that she had ‘other’ blood, or anything like that. No, she knows what she is. And what that is is chaos. Demons fluctuate somewhere around ‘chaotic’, and Sam herself fluctuates between chaotic neutral and chaotic evil; and occasionally chaotic good. If I was writing a review for the books I’ve read so far in the series, I’d continue that line of thinking but I’m not, I’m writing this here thingie for this here bookie.
Quite a fun and enjoyable book. Oh, one last thought – demons and angels specifically, though possible others, are . . . changeable. As already noted, Sam ‘owns’ more than just humans – and creates bodies based on those she owns. Well, naturally, some she owns are female . . . and some are male. Flexible, see? And the Angels are that way as well. Though the second part, sex, is more demon centric – demons aren’t exclusively heterosexual (how can they be when they can be anything, anybody in any body). Angels . . . well, that’s tougher and can be explained vaguely – part of the reason for the war was because Angels prefer the spirt form more than the physical form; demons prefer the physical, sinking into it, experiencing it, wallowing in it. That doesn’t mean that Angels do not have sex . . they just have . . . different . . um, ways of doing things. I’m being purposely vague. All I had wished to note, though, is that this isn’t a ‘me man, you woman, we hump’ book – everything’s flexible here. Though Sam’s love interest is male, and Sam’s in a female body at the moment.
Rating: 4.55
July 10 2017
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