Review: American Demon

American Demon by Kim Harrison
My rating: 3.75 of 5 stars

American Demon continues author Kim Harrison's The Hollows series, her decade-long, popular paranormal romance/urban fantasy series that completed in 2014. After some struggles to capture the same popularity with her new series (Peri Reed) and a crossover novelette Waylaid between the two worlds, Harrison has returned to The Hollows with a story that picks up immediately after the end of the main story of The Witch with No Name. Rachel Morgan and Trent Kalamack are trying to balance their two worlds, with Rachel continuing to work investigating the paranormal and Trent trying to repair his social standing. They also continue to try to deftly manage their parenting triangle with Trent's former lover Ellasbeth, for the benefit of their daughter Lucy, who is being raised with Ray as a sort of adopted sibling. In this outing, Rachel is trying to get to the bottom of a series of murders and near-fatal attacks perpetrated by companions/marital partners. While one partner sleeps, something seems to take them over and stir up old hurts and grievances, causing them to become angry and attack (sometimes fatally) their unwitting partner. Rachel herself has been having nightmares, and Al, her mentor/demon father figure, hasn't been very responsive of late. Then a new demon (who is actually a very old demon) who is not part of the Collective shows up. Who is he and what's the deal with his fascination with Rachel? Rachel, Trent, Ivy, Jenks, and Bis will have to work to solve the mystery of the murders and keep themselves safe from being attacked.

Stepping into the world of The Hollows again was an interesting experience. On the one hand, the characters felt warm and familiar, and on the other, the plot structure of the novel reminds me of the popular style of this type of genre fiction in the early 2000's. There is the problem to solve, the heroine's self-doubt, and in this particular series, the same struggles to balance demon, elf, witch, and vampire-bitten states while battling either something the demons did or something the elves did. While I understand trying to recapture the feel of the formula that made the series successful, the lack of pronounced growth in the narrative, and especially in Rachel herself is frustrating to me as a reader. We are sixteen years into the series, and to be honest, I felt as if we were tracing spelling circle Venn diagrams where overlapping elements of previous outings were revisited, which disappointed me. I also missed Al in this novel, as his presence was, as mentioned above, minimal. I'm hoping that we will see more of Al and Hodin interacting with one another in future books, and more of Rachel evolving further. If Trent is the right partner for her, his presence in her life should help her grow beyond where she has been for the last five books or so, right?I received a paper review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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