'Personal Demons' Megan Chase #1 by Stacia Kane

From the BLURB:

Megan promises listeners to her new radio call-in show that she'll "slay their personal demons," and they believe her. So do the personal demons... although she doesn't know it, Megan is the only human without a demon on her shoulder! Megan and her allies - a demon lover who both protects and seduces her with devilish intensity, a witch with poor social skills, and three cockney guard demons - have to deal not only with the personal demons, but a soul-sucker, ghosts of Megan's past, and a reporter who threatens to destroy Megan's career!

Megan Chase is on a roll. She has just made her on-air radio debut as the ‘Demon Slayer’ psychiatrist – answering calls and offering help over the airwaves. Her practice is doing well and while she has no social life to speak of, she’s happy. Her radio show is sure to be a smash-hit, and not just because of Megan’s charming on-air voice – you see, Megan has the added psychiatric benefit of being a telepath. She is able to read other people’s minds, even able to pick up on images and emotions over the telephone. Her radio show is going to be a ratings-bonanza!

So it makes sense that everything should come crashing down around her.

A local reporter called Brian is writing a ‘week in the life of’ article. But Megan’s stardom is quickly doused when an anonymous note points Brian in the direction of Megan’s horrific childhood secret . . .

Then a mysterious (and sexy) man called Greyson Dante starts popping up everywhere. He’s suave and sophisticated, no doubt a lawyer, and he is hell-bent on getting to know Megan and persuading her not to accept any offers or deals that come her way. . .

But Greyson isn’t just interested in Megan for legal purposes. Greyson has much more nefarious purposes . . . like convincing Megan that her catchy ‘Demon Slayer’ radio show has attracted the wrong kinds of attention from the denizens of hell.

“Demons.”

“Excuse me?”

“Demons.” He made another right turn. They were already in her neighbourhood.

Megan thought carefully about how to phrase her next sentence. “You’re telling me you believe you’re a demon.”

“I don’t believe anything,” he said. “And I’m not one of your patients. Don’t speak to me as if I am.”

“You might want to consider getting some psychiatric help, if you think you’re a demon.”

“I don’t think I am, I know I am. And you need to know it too.”

This should be good. “Why?”

“Because a considerable number of us are after you.”

‘Personal Demons’ is the first book in Stacia Kane’s first paranormal series, ‘Megan Chase’.

Sine reading (and falling in love with) Kane’s ‘Downside’ series, it only made sense that I back-track and read her first forays into the supernatural. ‘Personal Demons’ was first published in 2008, and is a trilogy that concluded last year.

The universe of ‘Megan Chase’ is a psychedelic/supernatural one. Megan is a humble psychiatrist, becoming a rising star in the radio world. All well and normal, except that Megan is no ordinary shrink . . . she has the added benefit of being able to read her patient’s minds. Megan is of the belief that her abilities are the strangest thing in the universe . . . until Greyson Dante enters her life and informs her that demons exist, and are none too impressed with her ‘Demon Slayer’ radio gimmick.

I loved Kane’s blend of normal/paranormal. She writes a wonderfully slow-seeping of the weird and wacky . . . it’s only once Megan is informed of demon existence that she starts seeing them everywhere. Little bald reptilian-like creatures that sit perched on people’s shoulders – encouraging them to do bad, nefarious things. It puts a whole new spin on Megan’s psychiatry background, and has her questioning everyone’s motives and free will when ‘personal demons’ are whispering in their ears.

There is a larger plot working throughout the story . . . regarding an all-powerful demonic Hell reject who has taken a special interest in Megan and her abilities. I wasn’t overly impressed with this storyline, mostly because it seemed messy and convenient. On the one hand, there’s an event from Megan’s childhood which is only just impacting her now . . . and it seems to have all (randomly?) come to the fore because some PR person dreamt up the ‘Demon Slayer’ title for her radio show. If these flimsy connections were ever explained, I must have blinked and missed it . . . otherwise it seemed like sloppy connect-the-dots. But that was my only complaint about this otherwise lovely book.

Of course, being a big Chess and Terrible fan, I had high-hopes for a similarly steamy coupling in her original supernatural series. Thankfully, Kane delivers. Greyson Dante is a fire demon sent to protect Megan for (as yet) unknown reasons. He’s gorgeous and tempting, with protruding black scales and a smile to die for. He and Megan steam up the page and banter like crazy. A lot of their tension-filled lust comes from Megan being uneasy about Greyson’s demon-status. Megan (like readers) knows only of the traditional, Biblical demons – the religious villains of Hellish stories. Kane plays around with traditional demon-mythology, bending the rules and making Megan question her black and white ideas of ‘good’ and ‘evil’.

Kane also continues her tradition of complicated love affairs – Greyson and Megan will no doubt be put through the ringer in the next two books, for a variety of fiery reasons. I can’t wait to read the lust, the tension and the sizzling sex scenes!

I read ‘Personal Demons’ with a conscious effort to not expect a series that was as brilliant as ‘Downside’ . . . but honestly, I should have known to have more faith in Stacia Kane. Her original supernatural series is fun and flirty; putting the outlandish in the everyday and writing a hellishly sexy couple in Megan Chase and Greyson Dante. I can’t wait to finish this series and cement Kane as an automatic-buy author for me.

4/5