Product Description

Posession. Murder. Mayhem.
Let the games begin...

Exorcism isn’t a job, it’s a calling—and a curse. Just ask Morgan Kingsley, a woman who has a stronger aura than any Demon. Or so she thought. Now, in a pair of black leather pants and a kick-ass tattoo, Morgan is heading back to Philadelphia after a nasty little exorcism—and her life is about to be turned upside down…by the Demon that’s gotten inside her.

Not just any Demon. Six foot five inches of dark, delicious temptation, this one is to die for—that is, if he doesn’t get Morgan killed first. Because while some humans vilify Demons and others idolize them, Morgan’s Demon is leading a war of succession no human has ever imagined. For a woman trying to live a life, and hold on to the almost-perfect man, being possessed by a gorgeous rebel Demon will mean a wild ride of uninhibited thrills, shocking surprises, and pure, unadulterated terror. . . .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #127159 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-27
• Released on: 2007-11-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 336 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780553590449
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Though demon possession is bad enough for the average Joe, Black's new heroine, native Philadelphian Morgan Kingsley, is a professional exorcist—making her possession by a powerful demon all the more infuriating (and embarrassing). Worse, the demon inside her, Lugh, is next in line to become king of the demon realm, and factions are hard at work to off him before he takes the throne. As neither of the standard options for demon killing appeal to Morgan (exorcism, which usually leaves the human host a mindless wreck, or burning at the stake, with predictable results), Morgan and Lugh (who communicate in dreams) must race against time to discover how he was implanted into her and, while keeping the rival demons at bay, how to get him out without killing her in the process. Although Black doesn't break any new ground, she's got a winning heroine, a well-crafted contemporary world where demonic possession is just a part of life and a nice balance of mystery, action and sex, making this light but engaging novel an urban fantasy series kickoff full of promise. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Jenna Black is your typical writer. Which means she's an "experience junkie." She got her BA in physical anthropology and French from Duke University.

Once upon a time, she dreamed she would be the next Jane Goodall, camping in the bush making fabulous discoveries about primate behavior. Then, during her senior year at Duke, she did some actual research in the field and made this shocking discovery: primates spend something like 80% of their time doing such exciting things as sleeping and eating.

Concluding that this discovery was her life's work in the field of primatology, she then moved on to such varied pastimes as grooming dogs and writing technical documentation. She writes paranormal romance for Tor and urban fantasy for Bantam Dell.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One


Topeka, Kansas. 

Demon capital of the world.  Not!

Demons, the illegal ones at least, tend to like the biggest cities. More anonymity. More prey. But every once in a while, one would pop up in the most unlikely place. Like Topeka.

I flew into Kansas City, Missouri, then had to rent a car for the ninety-minute drive to Topeka. I live in the suburbs, but I'm a city girl at heart. Driving ninety minutes on toll roads out in the middle of nowhere is my idea of Hell. But wait, it gets worse—no one bothered to tell Kansas it was spring, so it was snowing.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've driven in the snow. If I hadn't known they might burn an eleven-year-old girl to death if I didn't show up, I'd have ridden out the storm in Kansas City.

The speed limit was seventy, but I drove about thirty-five, squinting out the windshield, hoping there weren't any cows grazing on the interstate under cover of the blizzard. Okay, so maybe it wasn't a blizzard by Midwest standards, but it's all a matter of perspective.Kansas is one of ten states—including my home state, Pennsylvania—that allow the execution of humans hosting illegal demons. I called from the airport to let them know I'd be late. I almost choked when I noticed the area code for Topeka was 666. Gotta love the irony. Luckily, they weren't anxious to put a cute little girl to flame, despite the fact that she was allegedly possessed by a demon who'd murdered at least three people, so they agreed to wait for me.

The demon containment center-cum-execution chamber was in the basement of the courthouse and had more guards than most maximum security prisons. Why the idiots used legions of armed guards was beyond me. What were they going to do, shoot the host to death if a demon escaped? Yeah, that might solve the immediate problem and leave the demon without a body to inhabit, but if it found another host, you can bet revenge would be high on its to-do list. The only way to kill a demon is to exorcize it or burn its host alive. Lovely, huh?

I'd read little Lisa Walker's case on the plane. She and her parents had been visiting New York. They'd gone to a Broadway show, and when they were leaving, Lisa got knocked down by some thug who was running from the cops. Probably they thought it was exciting, because, hey, things like that just don't happen in Topeka.

It wasn't until they'd gotten home that they'd noticed anything wrong. She didn't do a Linda Blair and spit pea soup, but she definitely wasn't herself. It was the little things that gave it away—a suddenly more sophisticated vocabulary, a hint of attitude, the occasional expression in her eyes that was too old for her age. They'd called in a priest, and he'd immediately declared her possessed.

Me, I'd have been skeptical. Demons usually prefer strong adult bodies to inhabit, not delicate eleven-year-old girls. And no matter what they claim, priests aren't qualified to declare a person possessed. Yes, some of them are sensitives, and can see auras, but it's not a job requirement like it is for an exorcist.

So if I didn't think the kid was possessed, why had I flown all the way out here to bum-fuck Kansas to perform an exorcism? Because the court had ordered it, and the parents had approved it—and if the kid really was possessed, they'd barbecue her if an exorcist couldn't cast the demon out. The parents had demanded the best, and they could afford me, so here I was, freezing my tailfeathers off in Corn City, USA.

I had to clear two checkpoints before I even got close to the containment center. I'm sure I'd have made it through faster if I'd dressed the part, but if I'd wanted to wear suits, I'd have gone to business school. My uniform was a pair of tight low-rise jeans with a clingy sweater and a pair of kick-ass pointy-toed boots.

The director of the Topeka Containment Unit was one Frank Jenkins. He was a short, pudgy guy who looked harmless at first glance. He came out from behind a steel-barred door, smiling until he got a good look at me. Then the smile faded from the outside in until it morphed into a frown of disapproval. The frown didn't look anywhere near as harmless.

I put on my best hail-fellow-well-met smile and held out my hand. "Morgan Kingsley," I said, sounding almost perky. "You must be Mr. Jenkins."

He shook my hand and nodded, but he didn't look happy about it.

"I suppose you came straight to the courthouse without stopping by your hotel," Jenkins said, the frown still firmly in place.

That was true, though I wouldn't have changed clothes even if I had checked in. "I thought it would be best for everyone involved if we got this over with," I said. Which was also true. I couldn't imagine what the parents must be going through. Not to mention Lisa, trapped inside a body she could no longer control, a helpless passenger while the demon rampaged.

The theory was that the thug in New York had been hosting an illegal demon who was on the run, wanted for three murders. When he bumped into Lisa, the demon thought it had found the perfect escape. Just hitchhike out of New York in an adorable little girl's body and hope to find a more suitable host later. The police had caught the fleeing thug eventually, only to find his brain fried.

"Well, let's get to it," Jenkins said, still frowning at me. At five foot nine, I was about three inches taller than him. I got the feeling he didn't like that much. Actually, I got the feeling he didn't like much of anything about me. Maybe I was a little too big-city for him.

Without another word, he led me through the steel doors into the heart of the containment center.

Why, you might ask, would a small-time burg like Topeka, which hadn't had more than one or two illegal demons in the last five years, need its own containment center? Because Kansas didn't take well to demons, legal or otherwise. Enough of their citizens believed in the Biblical view of demons as minions of Satan to keep execution legal, and they wanted to be prepared in the event they had a chance to rid the world of one more evil.

What did this mean to me? It meant that while the personnel had all been trained for the job, they had little or no practical experience. And I saw evidence of that every step of the way as we walked to the execution chamber.

"Mr. Jenkins," I said when we stopped outside the chamber for him to key in the passcode, "why are your people not wearing gloves when you have a known illegal demon in custody?" An incorporeal demon needs an invitation to possess a human body, but one that already has a host can transfer from one to another through skin-to-skin contact. No one within a hundred yards of an illegal demon should be showing more skin than absolutely necessary.

Jenkins glared at me, liking me even less. "I can assure you, Ms. Kingsley, the demon is contained.

"I bit my tongue to stop myself from reminding him of several incidents of "contained" demons escaping and wreaking havoc. He didn't strike me as being open to constructive criticism.

The door mechanism made a few clicking and ratcheting sounds, then Jenkins swung it open. It gave a sigh when it opened, as if the room behind it had been vacuum sealed.

I'd thought the containment center staff not wearing gloves was unprofessional. Brother, I hadn't known what unprofessional was until I stepped into that room.

Lisa Walker was strapped onto a sliding steel table. At one end of the table were a pair of heavy metal doors that led into the oven. She was positioned so that her feet faced the doors. So that she could stare with her wide little-girl eyes at the oven that would burn her alive if I failed to exorcize the demon.

Tears had matted her eyelashes and the fine yellow hair that framed her face. Her whole body was shaking with terror, and pity stabbed through me so hard I had to fight not to put a hand to my chest. I reminded myself that I could very well be looking at a demon giving an Oscar-worthy performance, but the pity didn't go away.

If the child wasn't possessed, she might never recover from this trauma. If she was possessed, then this was a new low for demon-kind.

But Lisa Walker's pitiful little frame wasn't what horrified me the most. No, what horrified me the most was that her parents sat huddled together on a bench at the other end of the room. Mrs. Walker's eyes were swollen with tears, and Mr. Walker's face was pale and tense.

I whirled on Jenkins. "You're letting the parents watch? Are you nuts?"

Exorcisms are never a pretty sight. There's usually a lot of screaming and cursing. From the demon, not from me. And about seventy-five to eighty percent of demon hosts end up dead or catatonic when the demon is cast out. So far, no one has come up with a reliable method of predicting which hosts would survive intact.

"She's their daughter," Jenkins said, drawing himself up to his full, not very impressive height. "If you fail, they'll have to sign the consent form."

I looked at Lisa Walker and a very unpleasant lump formed in my throat. I hate demons with a passion. And I don't like the legal ones much better than the illegal ones. But even I wasn't sure I could sign the order to burn an eleven-year-old girl alive to destroy the demon. Especially not if the girl was my daughter!"

You could have had them sign the consent beforehand," I muttered, disliking Jenkins now as much as he disliked me."

They'd want to say goodbye."

I glanced over at the parents, who hadn't said word one to me. They couldn't even bear to look at me. Can't say I blamed them. I wished I'd worn a conservative business suit after all. I don't think my jeans and sweater gave them great confidence in my competence.

But the worst thing I could do now was make them wait and worry any longer, so I settled my s...

Customer Reviews

An Intriguing World
The premise of The Devil Inside really intrigued me. It's the story of how Morgan Kingsley, powerful exorcist and hater of demons, gets forced into the role of unwilling demon host. It's the story about a world where demons exist, and where humans can accept them willingly into themselves in order to become stronger, greater and more powerful than they could ever be alone. It's the story of different factions of demons struggling for power- one group in favor of making humans across the world nothing more than puppets, another group in favor of abolishing unwilling demon hosting. With that backdrop, Morgan is placed right in the middle of the action when she returns from an exorcism to find that her world has changed forever, where friends are enemies, enemies are unlikely allies, and where the demons are always two steps ahead.

I really enjoyed reading about all the characters in The Devil Inside, especially Lugh (the dangerously sexy king of demons unwillingly thrust inside Morgan), Adam (a demon who heads the Special Forces and who likes to inflict pain in the bedroom) and Dominic (a former Demon host and overall good guy). Morgan is a very likeable heroine. At first she comes across as rather hard-edged and cynical- kind of like she's seen and done it all. It doesn't take long to figure out that isn't true. Due to her upbringing in a family zealously in support of all demons and demon hosting, and her subsequent rebellion and hatred toward demons, Morgan is in fact rather close minded and naive. She finds out how much she has to learn after she moves in with Adam and Dominic. Her deep seated hatred and fear don't always allow her to make rational decisions, and in fact she makes several that she later regrets. However, I didn't feel like her actions were stupid or thoughtless, but were instead clouded by emotion and for the most part I found myself empathizing with her a great deal.

I was tempted to give this five stars, but after putting the book down I was left with a couple questions. Mostly those questions stem from the fact that the story is told in first person. That means that we only know what Morgan knows, and because of her avoidance of demons her entire life, that's not a lot. For instance, I never felt like I really got a handle on why demons would want to possess humans. Or the other way around, actually. I guess I side very much with Morgan with the view point that it seems completely horrible to give up control of your body for the rest of your life to a demon while you can only watch. How did this become an accepted or a desired thing? How did it all begin? And as I said, I really don't understand why demons would leave their world behind to live inside a human body. Maybe because in their natural incorporeal forms, demons cannot touch, and as Lugh points out, younger demons become rather obsessed with the sense of touch and all possible feelings related thereto. But, regardless, it seems like there needs to be a stronger motive than that. How powerful are demons, really? And if they are that powerful, why would they need or want to possess human bodies?

Overall, I really enjoyed The Devil Inside. The story starts off with a bang, and kept me turning each page, losing sleep so I could find out the conclusion to the story. I really liked Morgan, she loses a lot and has to make many sacrifices, and despite her protestations that she's not a hero, she really is. Unfortunately, some questions prevented me from really loving this novel, but I hope more will be clarified the next time around. Even with those questions, I can still enthusiastically recommend it.

Interesting concept--but story bogged down in rough erotic content
Morgan is an exorcist. Her worst fear is demon possession--and she has good reason to be afraid. She lives in an execution state--yes, if a human is found to be involuntarily possessed and cannot be exorcised, they're burned alive.

The story begins with Morgan being summoned to KS for an exorcism. The victim is a little girl, already strapped to the metal table and ready to go into the oven if the exorcism fails. The demon inside the girl is quite strong and Morgan gets touched by it--she wakens in a containment room herself, suspected possessed by the demon she just exorcised, but she knows that's not true and can't figure out why.

Her sleep's been troubled for a long time. She sleepwalks and now she's writing notes to her waking self from a demon named Lugh, who claims to have involuntarily have possessed her when she was drugged by her family.

This is just the beginning of a tale that takes you to a world where demons are on one side voluntarily hosted and almost worshipped by the Spirit Society and abhorred and abused by the Wrath of God. The hints of world-building in this novel are very interesting particularly in relation to demon advocacy.

The characters show some potential. Morgan is a strong, feisty woman who doesn't always make the best decisions. Still, she is loyal and will risk her life for someone she cares for. I would like to see stronger character development in the future.

Unfortunately, the plot got bogged down in heavy erotic content. When I say heavy, I am referring to whips and chains, etc. Fortunately, none of it was precisely non-consensual; however, I'd have enjoyed the politics and world-building much more than the explicit material.

I'm not sure this first novel actually has a good niche. It's billed as a fantasy, but the erotic content should probably have it shelved in romance instead. However, most female readers of romance I know are not into the 'heavy' stuff. The sequel's concept looks promising, but I'd have to read through a good bit of it before I decided to give it a try.

Pretty Monumentally Stupid
"pretty monumentally stupid". That's not me speaking, that's how one character in this book describes Morgan Kingsley. Unfortunately that's a very accurate description of her. Morgan spends more than half the book apologizing for the stupid things she does. She spends the other half continuing to be stupid.

Morgan is self righteous and hypocritical. At the beginning of the book she boasts to the reader how she likes to wear tight leather pants cause she looks hot in them. Later on she is too embarrased to wear a sexy outfit to a club. She is judgemental of the S&M lifestyle of Adam and Dominic and proceeds to make snotty comments about it whenever possible.

The author, Jenna Black, has created some really interesting fully fledged characters. The romantic relationship between Adam and Dominic feels realistic even though one is a human possessed demon. I was really impressed by her imagination and the way she portrayed every other character. I just can't like a book when I hate the main character. I have about 50 pages left to finish this book, and I all I want from the ending is for her to die. So that I can read the next book with only the supporting characters.

If you are interested in this book I recommend that you check it out from the library first so you don't end up in the same situation as me.