The Devil's Advocate by Michaela HazeMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Being Queen of Hell Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up To Be
I decided to read this book after reading Red City, a more recently written book, as I wanted to know more about the world in which it was set.
This author has a great imagination, with some decidedly dark turns to it. This book is probably not for people of slightly nervous constitutions, or probably around meal times. We are talking about demons here and they author doesn’t shy away from the basic evil of them as a species, though she does imbue them with more human emotions too, that are quite a lot less evil, such as love and loyalty.
Two hundred years ago Lucifer banished his consort, Dahlia, to the human realm. He gave no explanation why, after more than a millennia together, he cast her out. She has been working as his broker with humans ever since because he can only come to the human realm for 66 minutes and 6 seconds each day. Though Dahlia is banished from hell she is still fed by it and is infinitely more strong than many other demons and than all daemons (humans changed by demon blood and sin into immortals that need to feed on sins directly created by humans). Dahlia is still devastated at the loss of Lucifer and hates him for casting her out at the same time as longing for him.
This author conveys loss and longing so brilliantly you can understand how someone who has been betrayed can still want the person who betrayed them. Lucifer’s motives are unclear almost until the end of the book and following Dahlia’s confusion and reactions to his actions leaves you at as much of a loss as she is.
For a demon queen, Dahlia is a very sympathetic character. This is probably because she doesn’t come across as outright evil. She appears to have a little empathy, which is surprising.
The plot is complex and compelling and draws you in. I devoured the book as the story was excellent. I will say though that there are lot of typos and grammatical problems in the book. I don’t think I noticed this problem in Red City, so it may be that because this was an early book there wasn’t enough money for an editor. It’s only a little distracting, but I know someone people hate books like that so I wanted to give the information in case it’s important. I think it would be a shame if this put you off, because it’s an imaginative and interesting novel.
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