Paul Costanzo

**an edited version of this review appears at All About Romance in the Speaking of Audiobooks column 22 August 2011 and will also be on the SOA Group's minishelves**Demon is book 2 in Kristina Douglas’ Fallen series, the follow up to Raziel. *spoilers for Raziel*. At the end of the first book, Azazel’s beloved Sarah has been killed and in his grief, he leaves Sheol. Demon picks up 5 years later when Azazel locates ”the Lillith” (aka Rachel, who has no memory of Lillith) a demon who, according to folklore kills babies and seduces men when she’s not having sex with beasts. He’s been watching her for 2 years and he plans on killing her. There is a prophecy which says that Azazel will marry the Lillith and rule Hell and bear a new generation of Fallen. Azazel, stuck in his grief for Sarah’s loss, wants to make sure the prophecy fails. He sets Rachel up for the Nephilim to kill but balks at the last minute. 2 more years go by and Azazel finds out that the Lillith may know the whereabouts of Lucifer, the one Fallen who may be able to defeat Uriel, their very bad boss. So, he goes and finds Rachel again and is intent on discovering her forgotten secrets. I didn’t like it. Sorry. The narration was fine. My problem were with the story. I found myself, throughout the listen saying “why?”. Why did Rachel’s hair change colour? Why did Azazel come back for her after he’d left her to the Nephilim? Why did Rachel still want him after his awful betrayal with the Truthtakers? Also, I asked, “what?”. What is Rachel? Throughout the book she was a demon, no longer a demon, a human, a human with the demon inside her, a human who used to have a demon. I still don’t know. I didn’t get the connection between Azazel and Rachel - the why of their relationship. They hated each other - Rachel certainly had a number of very good reasons to hate Azazel. Then suddenly they love each other. And, “All right, I’m sorry” was nowhere near enough of a grovel for what Azazel needed to atone for. I’m not sure what would have been actually.I never had a handle on the why and the what and the how and so I struggled to finish this one. Most of the book was from Rachel’s perspective and Karen White’s narration was very good but it wasn’t enough to elevate the problems I had with the story. Paul Costanzo was okay – a little better than in Raziel I think – although Azazel was described as “cold” for most of the book, so a certain lack of emotionality was to be expected. Diana enjoyed this one a lot more than I did however, so maybe I’m an outlier.… (mere)