I really find the characters in the story charming, from Kate to her son to her best friend. Love hearing about their adventures. Great listen on the way into work. ( )

Overall I like the story. Good character development. Plot and storyline continue from book 1. My only gripe is the domestic side of the story; the pace is slow. ( )

Really enjoying this series! ( )

Kate is back, juggling the life of a soccer mom and now a full time demon hunter – dedicated to ridding the city of infernal monsters and keep it safe for her children. In between doing the shopping, taking her daughter to the mall, getting her 3 year old in child care and ensuring there’s a meal on the table. Add in that her husband is running for office which means she hardly ever sees him as he runs around for campaign donations – and she’s inevitably dragged into important social occasions she’s neither interested in, nor has time for. It’s hectic. It’s even more hectic when the only person who knows about her demon hunting secret is her best friend, Laura.

And the demons are certainly present – forcing her to kill one and leave its body in her daughter’s school, which is always awkward. The demons are plotting something, something that could invoke the worst of the worst demons out there – and something that may easily catch up her daughter in the process. Finding the answers and protecting her family is only complicated by messages from her ex-husband’s past, a secret she never knew, her own daughter’s curiosity – and a new hunter in town. One without the ties she’s used to – but one who knows far too much about her, and her dead husband Eric’s past.

This book is very fluffy – which makes it a fun, light read. Kate’s fumbling around her life is pretty amusing (albeit not always funny) and the contrast between fighting demons, stabbing them in the eye and having to dispose of the body on the one hand and then facing down snarly, unpleasant PTA members on the other is jarring in all the best ways. This book also added some more on to the world building with the imprisoned demons and the plot to release them which adds a level of what’s at stake and the consequences of failure. But in some ways I think the light hearted, fun nature of the book detracts from any sense of epic; it’s not heavy enough or gritty enough for the horror of the consequences to come through.

The only problem I have with the writing is probably unsolvable without damaging he book’s premise. The whole point of this series, the thing that makes it novel and unique, is that Kate is a harassed mother trying to juggle her parenting and family duties with her duties as a demon hunter. To maintain that theme, we have to see Kate through all her juggling of kids, child care, PTA dramas, volunteering etc etc and it’s not very interesting or engaging. But if you cut it, then you lose the entire theme and purpose of the book itself. But this also makes me look at the series itself and wonder at how it continues for another 5 books because the gimmick is feeling stale round the edges

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Cotton candy reading. Enjoyable fluff to read, once in a while is nothing to feel guilty about, a little sugar high, and then it is gone.

The sub-title says it all: “The Secret Life of a Damon-Hunting Soccer Mom”