Demon Angel by Mel­jean Brook  is her para­nor­mal romance debut.  Here is the descrip­tion of the plot:

For two thou­sand years, Lilith wrought vengeance upon the evil and the damned, gath­er­ing souls for her father’s armies Below and prov­ing her fealty to her Under­world liege.  Bound by a bar­gain with the devil and for­bid­den to feel plea­sure, she draws upon her dark pow­ers and ser­pen­tine grace to lead men into temp­ta­tion.  That is, until she faces her great­est temp­ta­tion — Heaven’s own Sir Hugh Castleford.…

ANGEL

Once a knight and now a Guardian, Hugh spent cen­turies bat­tling demons — and the cursed, blood-drinking Nos­fer­atu.  His pur­pose has always been to thwart the demon Lilith, even as he bat­tles his treach­er­ous hunger for her.  But when a deadly alliance unleashes a threat to both humans and Guardians in modern-day San Fran­cisco, angel and demon must fight together against unholy evil — and against a desire that has been too long denied.…

This book has been pretty well reviewed so I won’t be adding any­thing new about the story. The story seems to cen­ter around Hugh and Lilith match­ing wits with each other for sev­eral cen­turies.  I thought it went on a bit too long.  Lilith is a demon set out to tempt and con­demn souls for Lucifer’s army Below. How­ever, her human prey, Sir Hugh Castle­ford thwarts her plans at every turn. This intrigues Lilith and her actions inad­ver­tently leads to his untimely death.  Sir Hugh  ascends to Heaven to be a Guardian and pro­tect humans from demons and Nosferatu’s. After cen­turies of being a Guardian, Hugh decides to Fall after cen­turies of dis­il­lu­sion­ment. Mean­while, Lilith is fas­ci­nated by Hugh and it is this fas­ci­na­tion that leads her down a path of temp­ta­tion that will ulti­mately lead to her death…or will it?

Do you need to brush up on your bib­li­cal his­tory of Lucifer and his rebel­lion against God? I did. Other play­ers include the Nosferatu’s, who are blood suck­ers who are hunted by demons and Guardians alike. Nos­fer­atu hunt vam­pires who are their off­spring. Then there’s Lilith’s Hell­hound named Sir Pup who pro­tects her and her vam­pire friend, Colin. A char­ac­ter I think we’ll see more of in Demon Moon. Then there’s Beelze­bub dis­guised as a politi­cian among many other demons in high posi­tions of gov­ern­ment.  This is all apart of Lucifer’s “mas­ter plan” to bring more souls to Hell by manip­u­lat­ing the laws of mankind. Enough about the plot because there is a lot going on in the story.

Demon Angel is a solidly writ­ten novel for a debut. I was impressed. The good points: The world build­ing was fas­ci­nat­ing and com­plex. Great atmos­phere, great dia­logue, solid char­ac­ter­i­za­tion. Loved Hugh, baf­fled by Lilith. Her feel­ings, her friend­ships were an anom­aly for a demon like her.  Loved the humor and the setting. Now for the bad: the story was too long; could have been tighter. Pac­ing is too slow espe­cially in the sec­ond part of the novel. Hugh and Lilith’s out­wit­ting each other started to tax my brain after awhile, as I am not going to pre­tend  that I under­stood fully, everything that was said between them. Often, I was quite con­fused and baf­fled by their many exchanges. There is a lot of head-hopping that con­fused me and made me back­track which slowed me down even fur­ther. In impor­tant scenes, you do want to know which char­ac­ter said what to whom. But again, this is a first novel.  However, I look for­ward to read­ing more from Ms. Brook. My grade, B.