The Devil's Kiss - Sarwat Chadda

[kitsuchi.livejournal.com]

The Devil's Kiss was previously reviewed on the comm here so I'll just put my personal response here and skip the summary bits.

I read a review The Devil's Kiss today which seemed to put it in with all the vampire novels that are coming out for girls at the moment (and variants such as the werewolves and even zombies – yes, zombies as romantic interests!) It doesn't belong to this particular genre of supernatural book at all. The Devil's Kiss bears more resemblance to things like Anthony Horowitz's Power of Five series – except without failing on the female protagonist – or to Skulduggery Pleasant, where the girl actually does kick ass. It's an action-adventure, with the addition of Judeo-Christio-Islamic mythology (and definitely all three). Which means it's right up my alley.

There is some romance, yes, but not with a jerk. (Unless you count her short-lived interest in the boy who turns out to be the big baddy.) And Kay's story never subsumes Billi's. In the bittersweet ending, he sacrifices himself for Billi's sake, which is unusual in that the self-sacrificing role is usually given to the female character (even when she's the main character!) And while Billi is a sword-fighter, Kay has the female-coded psychic abilities. It's nice to have a story that can give the female character some romance without letting that overwhelm her character.

The prose itself wasn't anything special, and I think I skimmed a lot of the descriptive parts, but I was gripped by the story, engaged by the world and the characters. There's a sequel coming out, which I'm keen for, but it's also a fully self-contained story (another nice change!) Particularly recommended for teenage girls who like action-adventure and are sick of having their gender relegated to secondary roles!