Hunting the Demon by Jaci Burton

Life as a demon hunter really isn’t bad for Shay Peterson, at least not at the moment. She’s on a beautiful beach in Sydney, Australia watching a bronzed surfer come toward her. Her current lead is Nic Diavolo, who may or may not have demonic leanings. Being bait never felt so good for Shay, though she feels guilty for deceiving Nic.

Nic is attracted to Shay, but he doesn’t realize until too late that she’s got other things in mind for him. Instead of being tied up in bed, he’s handcuffed, kidnapped and taken to a remote corner of Australia. Nic’s trying hard to believe the wild tale he’s told about demons or figure out who his enemies are so he can try to escape and get back to his life.

From the beginning Nic and Shay have a great attraction, but her deception and his attempt to escape put a barrier in their relationship. Soon though they realize working together has its benefits, hunting demons and elsewhere, especially when a familiar evil comes about and seeks to take the one thing that Nic knows is truly his: his soul.

The characters in this story are first rate. Burton knows how to write a troubled, yet strong woman and a conflicted, yet masculine man. Shay and Nic complement each other very well and show that working together gives you strength in your relationship and in life. The sparks these two set off made me think at times there was steam coming off the pages of the book.

Both Nic and Shay are dealing with their own guilt and family issues as well. Especially knowing who is family, the people you’re born into, or those you choose to be around later in your life. Nic also finds a brother he didn’t know he had (due to a traumatic childhood incident) in Derek Marks, who is the hero of Surviving Demon Island.

As far as sequels go, this one was worth the read. It revisited the older characters and gave us some new ones to grow to care about. Nic and Shay seemed to have a more real and long lasting love than Derek and Gina did in the first one, but seeing Derek and Gina again showed their love was real.

The hardest part to get was the world that Burton built. The demons and what the demon hunters do to fight them doesn’t really seem to mesh well. If the demon hunters can kill so many demons at once, why are the demons still around? If there are so many demons around, why haven’t they overrun the world yet? The demonic angle of the story doesn’t make much sense.

The characters are great, though the world doesn’t work too well, but since it’s a characters first, world second type of story, it doesn’t take away from the love story and the HEA.

Grade: B-