Succubus In The City - Nina Harper

Yes, you guessed it, it's Sex in the City with sex demons, greed demons and the Prince of Darkness thrown in for good measure.

Our protagonist Lily (short for Lilith [1]), is one of the four Chosen of Satan. She, along with Desi, Sybil and Eros are tasked with delivering souls to Hell. As a succubus [2], in order for Lily to deliver a victim’s soul to Satan she has to make him orgasm. If the man in question doesn’t get her to climax before he does, he bursts into flames and turns to dust. As you can imagine, this is not exactly the best way to get a date, especially when the victim is unlikely to survive past third base. Lily’s job is made even harder because righteous men aren’t tempted by succubi (and she’s a feminist), so she ends up delivering sleazebags, rapists and child molesters.

This is where the Sex and the City similarities begin. As in the show [3], Lily’s friends are the cornerstones of her life. Being able to have martinis with Satan is one thing, but despite her amazing figure, lots of money and the ability to eat tonnes of Ben and Jerry's ice-cream, Lily isn’t very happy. Men are a problem for all of the Chosen, and so the book focuses quite a bit on comfort food, a variety of cocktails and the girls sympathizing with each other.

Things begin to get interesting when the Chosen start being hunted down by a group of “Knight Defenders” who want to wipe them from the face of the Earth. As the attacks coincide with Lily finding a man who’s apparently willing to like her for who she is, this bit of mystery adds some spice to the storyline.

Something else that caught my eye was the ending. Usually I get really annoyed if a book can’t be a stand-alone in its own right, but although the threads of the story weren’t tied up in a neat little bow, I wasn’t bothered at all.

I did end up liking this book, as it’s a fun and fluffy read [4]. I something that you’d sit down with when you don’t really want to engage your brain, but intriguing enough to keep you going until the end.

I believe the sequel (Succubus Takes Manhattan) is out in bookstores so I'm looking forward to reading that as well.

[1] In modern Lucifarianism, Lilith is known as the Queen of the Succubi.

[2] A succubus is a female demon that draws the energy needed to sustain them by tempting men to have sex with them. This often ends in the exhaustion and eventual death of the victim.

[3] Disclaimer: Having watched a few episodes of Sex and the City as well as the first movie, this review is based my personal experience with the show. I apologise to any die-hard fans out there – please don’t kill me!

[4] After I wrote this review, I had a look at some others and they’d described the book as fun and fluffy too. I guess I'm pretty on the ball :).