Series: Prophecies Implied – Book 1
Author: Mahalia Levey
No of Pages: 75
Release Date: 15 November 2010
Born of a Navajo healer and a high-level prince of Hell, The Dine Gods demanded Fatal be turned over to her mother's tribe to learn their healing arts and kept away from demon hands. But with her tutelage came cruel segregation and disrespect because of her father's heritage. Not knowing why her life has suddenly come under demon attack, Fatal sets out, armed with her knowledge and her fighting skills, to take out any evil that getsin her way.
As prince of a lower level of Hell, Orobus signed a contract in blood that he be betrothed to Fatal, the high prince of Hell’s half-breed daughter. Oracle by birth, he isn’t privy to complete visions with regard to himself. Having forgotten the fateful night he signed the agreement, he’s thrust into the fight of his life—the fight to claim his woman! Come Hell or high water, he will take care of what is rightfully his, even if it means making her face both sides of her heritage and teaching her there is no shame.
My Thoughts:
I was expecting great things from Demonic Persuasion but I was left confused and mildly irritated.
Fatal has been shunned by the community she was raised in because of her half demon heritage. She leaves to strike out on her own and winds up fighting in demonic bars to earn her keep. When Orobus spots her in his bar he is drawn to her presence before he enforces their contract made at her birth and whisks her off to Hell.
Fatal really wasn’t a strong character, she was one contradiction after another. She acted tough was tough but then seemed to fall apart about halfway through. She has the training of the Navajo healers, her birth mothers people, and hates her demonic side. She also hates her parents hates Orobus and hates the life she has been forced to lead. But then all of a sudden, she can’t be without Orobus, loves her brother and runs to her mother’s open arms a day after telling them all she hated them.
That was the entire tone of Demonic Persuasion, that and trying to confuse the reader to the point of violent frustration. Every third page I was re-reading entire paragraphs just to figure out if Fatal was still in Hell or on Earth.
Orobus who apparently has this highly valued contract with Fatal’s father giving him possession of her and the right to mate her against her will didn’t even know who she was even after she stated her true name. Then six chapters later he is telling her how he had been waiting so long for her to come to him.
Not to mention the complete character change when Fatal is forced to go to Hell after being knocked unconscious, and waking up in a strange room, does she try to run? Does she put up any sort of a fight against the being she hates most in this world? Of course not, the next course of action is to so clearly jump into bed with a demon prince of Hell and wake up the next day like this is the life you have been living for the last ten years even though you still hate the person you just woke up next to.
The real killer for me was when Orobus was beaten to within an inch of his life for covering for Fatal, he told her it would take him two weeks or so to recover from the poison infested wounds and yet he’s up the next morning for another exciting round of I-don’t-like-you-and-there-is-no-logical-reason-for-me-to-be-doing-this sex.
Demonic Persuasion was a buffet of absurdity. Levey took a good idea and hacked it to pieces with incoherent writing, jumpy timelines and a very shaky main character that didn’t seem to know who or what she was.
I have been known to have masochistic tendencies, but even I will not be sitting down the next instalment of this trainwreck.
