Harper Willis is an independent young demon, making her way with her lair, running a tattoo parlour. Her independence is put at stake when she encounters her anchor. An anchor for a demon is their partner, their spiritual other half, unfortunately for Harper her anchor turns out to be Knox a powerful demon with a secretive past...

Burn (2016. 375 pages) is the first book in a new supernatural series, written by British author, Suzanne Wright.

Given that she has had a number of previous series published, there is an audience for her type of romantic writing; personally, I got as far as page thirty-six before deciding that I was both too old and the wrong sex for the book, but mostly I found the poor attention to detail annoying. I did finish the book, in the end.

One of the problems Wright has is with her choice of her protagonist’s genealogy. Each is a magical being, like an imp, who has a demon inside them waiting to take over, but even so Wright keeps referring to her characters as if they were human. If indeed it was that they were magical creatures then why bother just making them human and referring to them as if they were. It’s like having someone with the characteristics of three genders and arbitrarily switching between gender states, all very confusing.

I think the answer to this is that the characters have to be outwardly human, otherwise the hormonal gushing’s wouldn’t work. This is one of those novels where all the men come over like Heathcliff on steroids, which make the female characters either swoon or engage in a level of emotional intimacy reminiscent of The Vagina Monologues.

The loose attention to details crops up in other aspects of the book, for instance, Harper is introduced by having her engage in a fight, her opponent is thrown a dagger and Harper dodges a sword. Not sure if the dagger was really big or the sword very small, but it does not point to a well written book.

The plot itself is little more than a vehicle for the romantic aspect of the novel. So, if you like to read supernatural stories which fall somewhere between Mills & Boon and Fifty Shades of Grey, then this one is for you.

5

Charles Packer