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    The Iron Hunt
    The Iron Hunt
    The Iron Hunt
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Iron Hunt

    Written by Marjorie M. Liu

    Narrated by Marguerite Gavin

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Silver smoke winds around my torso, peeling away from my ribs and back, stealing the dark mist covering my hands and lower extremities...tattoos dissolving into demon flesh, coalescing into small dark bodies. My boys. The only friends I have in this world. Demons.

    I am a demon hunter. I am a demon. I am Hunter Kiss.

    By day, her tattoos are her armor. By night, they unwind from her body to take on forms of their own. Demons of the flesh, turned into flesh. This is the only family demon hunter Maxine Kiss has ever known. The only way to live-and the very way she'll die. For one day, her demons will abandon her for her daughter to ensure their own survival-leaving Maxine helpless against her enemies.

    But such is the way of Earth's last protector-the only one standing between humanity and the demons breaking out from behind the prison veils. It is a life lacking in love, reveling in death, until one moment-and one man-changes everything.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateDec 1, 2008
    ISBN9781400180035
    The Iron Hunt

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    Reviews for The Iron Hunt

    3.5/5

    34 ratings31 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I think I liked the ideas in this story more than liked the story itself. Still an entertaining read.
    • 4/5
      At first, I wasn't into this book. I appreciated the originality of Liu's ideas and the gritty elegance of her writing, but the story itself seemed slow. About halfway through, though, things picked up and I was thoroughly hooked. The originality that, just prior, was simply interesting became brilliant. I was fairly confused while reading, even after some things were "explained," yet that only spurs me to keep up with this series. I guess I should also check out the novella "Hunter Kiss," which begins the series.
    • 3/5
      Readable, but not that engaging. When I put it down, I wasn't dying to get back to it. Maybe too much unexplained? Had the feeling that I'd come into the middle of the series and never really caught up.
    • 4/5
      Whew...OK. I just finished "The Iron Hunt" by Marjorie M. Liu and it's very different from her 'Dirk & Steele' series. This is truly an urban fantasy, and a damn good one. The mysteries and the mystical pull you in and you can't stop reading until you find the answers to all the questions.Maxine is a Hunter. She hunts the demons that possess the bodies of humans. By day her demons are her protection--tattoos that cover her body and render her invulnerable. By night, her demons peel from her skin, leaving her with only her fighting skills and their proximity as her shields. This is her life and her lineage, the demons passed from mother to daughter through ages uncounted. But now 'the veil' is thinning...and Maxine may be the last Hunter...the only thing standing between humanity and hell.If you like dark paranormals and urban fantasy, don't miss this new series.
    • 3/5
      A part of my low rating is due to the audio book's narrator - her voice and reading style just did not work for me. Add in an uninteresting main character (Maxine), a romance that felt flat, and names that felt awkward (Blood Mama, The Boys), and it all combines to a series I will not be following.
    • 5/5
      The Iron Hunt is a beautifully written book with some interesting twists on established fantasy memes. To some extent, I felt that I'd come in to the world on book 2 or 3, but as far as I know (and from what Amazon says) this is the first book of the Hunter Kiss series. There was a bit of Buffy and a little Witchblade, with other elements I'm sure I'm overlooking.For once, it's good to see a novel in which an established couple has a seemingly-healthy relationship. Maxine and Grant have very different skills, but they work together well. That said, this is not a romance.Edited to add: I just learned that there is, in fact, a prequel to this book in The Wild Thing anthology, which I hadn't heard of before. I'll certainly be looking for it.
    • 4/5
      This book surpassed my expectations. I expected it to be another of the now commonplace vampire novels , with a main female character with some special ability. Now, although we do have that type of protagonist, I was happy to see that the books style was somewhat unique to me. It is important to know that the first chapter is not representative of the whole. It is a somewhat poetic prologue, which sets the rhythm of the plethora of unanswered questions going, while the rest of the novel is closer to standard prose.The main strength of the novel is it's fast pace, as many questions are answered as not, and there are plenty of plotlines that seem to range from minor to major, although due to some of the twists these minor themes can become major at any time. In addition to this speed, which makes the reader hunger for more, is the characters. While in many other novels, the characters are deliberately left less developed to preserve mystery, here the author manages to make hers more rounded, while revealing almost nothing, this is particularly true of "the boys", which is rather impressive since only one can actually speak. Somehow what we know we don't know about them helps to shape their characters, and I would recommend Reading it for those characters alone.However, no book is perfect, and this is no exception. The biggest problem I had was that her name, Maxine Kiss, is supposed to be secret. Yet there is no sense of secrecy applied to, even though it seems to be important. There a couple of other small moments like that, where the way Maxine acts or feels seems to defy the narrative, but they are less noticeable. Perhaps this is evidence of characters not behaving the way the author wants them to...The other possible downside is that the novel didn't have a sense of ending, by which I mean that it feels like the first part of a larger book. The other parts of the trilogy, or at least the next one, would help give a much more solid major story arc to the first book, as we still don't really know the major goal of the protagonist, except try and stay alive as her world gets worse and worse, which is pretty standard anyway. But this can also be seen from a more positive point of view, by considering that it leaves a perfect place, even demand for the next novel, and instead of the traditional single strong sense of "what happens next", it provides a collection of weaker ones.Is it worth reading? Definitely. It's an interesting concept to read, and the "boys" are excellent characters. Is it worth buying? Well. I can't answer that until I read the next book. It was a good read, but since it's plot depends so much on book two, I personally wouldn't want to buy it until I knew it was going to lead to a great story. If you can get it at a discount, go for it, or if you just want to read about demons that turn into tatoos (which you should, it's brilliant), then buy the book. I sincerely look forwards to reading the sequel.
    • 3/5
      I would really prefer to give this 3 1/2 stars...

      I did enjoy the book, but it took me a while to get into it. Also, there was a significant amount of stuff that happened at the end that wasn't explained well enough for my liking. Now, seeing that this is intended to be a series, it makes sense. But the book is tied up neatly enough (and my copy has no mention that I saw of "book #1 of series") that I was sure it was a stand-alone.

      Definitely worth checking out book #2.
    • 3/5
      I really wanted to like this book and I think it's a great premise. I love the idea of living tatoos, but I found long stretches of the book uninteresting. I will certainly read the next book in the series.
    • 3/5
      She is Earth's last protector. Hunter Maxine Kiss is the only thing standing between our world and the prison veils that keep demons from taking over our home. Passed down from mother-to-daughter for generations her own demons protect her body by day, resting as tattoos on her skin. At night her demons walk beside her, allies and parasites in their own right. I wish I could offer more details on the plot. A better synopsis, but I spent most of the time I was working through this book back-tracking trying to figure out what I had missed. Were there lines I needed to be reading between perhaps? Liu is a great author, she has a wonderful imagination, but there was something missing in this story. I later found out part of that may have been because the story actually begins in an anthology. Some readers may like this but I found it to be a stumbling block. Why should I be forced to go out and buy an anthology so I could get the first chapters of this new series? I tried to like it. I was very interested in the demons and how they came to be passed to Maxine and her maternal bloodline before her. Unfortunately very little was explained to help this part of the story along and while there were secondary characters I wanted to know more about and see more of I ended up finding Maxine herself to be a bit too two-dimensional for my tastes as a reader. If you're a hard-core urban fantasy fan or demon slayers are a favorite heroine type for you this series might turn out to be right up your alley. For me, the results are still out there... I'll be waiting a while before bothering with any further installments.
    • 1/5
      Whenever a book fails this completely too capture my interest I'm compelled to explain why. I want to say that I'm usually a fan of Liu's work--I enjoy the Dirk and Steele books very much. But this book was something I just couldn't get into.The premise is pretty cleaver. Maxine Kiss is a demon hunter. The only family she has ever known are the tatoos on her body which come to life and help her fight at sunset. Maxine has a lover named Grant who actually intrigued me at first. He runs a homeless shelter, he used to be a preist, and he has the power to alter people's personalities through music. This all seems really fantastic. Oh, how I wanted to like this book.This book almost read like a sequel to a book that never existed. It starts out with a prologue--Maxine is a child with her mom, and they go into a zombie bar and...weird stuff happens. I was still trying to wrap my mind around zombies and demons and how everything in this world works when the story picked up with Maxine as an adult. There is no pause to explain who she is or what she actually does. We meet Grant, who seems to have an elaborate back story that isn't told (at least not right away). There are also the residents of the homeless shelter and of course the tatoos to be introduced. It's a lot all at once. I understand wanting to jump right into plot and not get too bogged down in world building, but as a reader I require at least fragments of explanation that I can reasonably peice together. Say, what are demons in this universe, and what are zombies? Where does Maxine come from and how exactly does she go about her calling? Who is Grant, why are they together, where do his powers come from? I feel like this story needed a prequel or an origin story to answer the question of who are these people and why should I care. The style reflects this lack of useful information. There are a lot of abrupt statements and sentence fragments.Fantasy readers are used to dealing with questions that go unanswered for most of the book, and yes part of the fun is figuring it all out. But this has it's limits. I didn't finish this book because I didn't feel attached to the characters at all. I don't plan on continuing with the series.
    • 2/5
      I wanted to love this book, but I spent the first half wondering if there was an introduction, maybe a short story in an anthology, that I'd missed. Then the story really got rolling and while it has a good premise, the main character spends A LOT of time being introduced to new characters, nearly all of whom know more about what's going on than she does and none of whom will ever answer a question directly. Some of this in a novel is intriguing and gets a reader thinking, too much is just plain frustrating. This was a little too much in my opinion.I imagine I will eventually try the next book in the series to see if Liu has worked out the kinks, but I won't be waiting out in front of the bookstore for it.
    • 3/5
      I was reading this book at about the same time as Dead Witch Walking (DWW) by Kim Harrison. I was reading The Iron Hunt at home and Dead Witch Walking in work. By the end of the week I had to think for a moment to figure out which character belonged to which world! The two books are quite similar :) This book is pacier than DWW though. DWW was a very slow starter. This one draws you right into Maxine's world. One thing I regretted doing at the start, was reading the prologue. That took a bit out of the reading enjoyment because the prologue throws the reader right into the middle of the fracas before the world building so it was slightly confusing. So if you haven't read this book yet, don't read the prologue before reading the story. Read it at the end. The story telling quality while good is not quite a masterpiece, a 3.5 out of 5. There were parts where the author dragged the drama out in a drawn out overkill which was annoying. It was so overdrawn that it almost presented the main protagonist as "stupid" that she just couldn't "get it", bordering on irritating, instead of the intellegent and kick-ass chick that she is portrayed to be in the book!The story itself while not original, I still find it quite good and enjoyable. Ms. Liu puts a nice spin to a well-used tale. I'd give it a 4 out of 5. However... the thing about the story is... if Maxine Kiss (heroine) is a one-woman defender of the human race team, why is she travelling only around the US? this begs the question of:a.) Does that mean that the US has the highest concentration of demons, enough to warrant ignoring the rest of the world?b.) The rest of the world is not considered human enough to be saved?c.) It wasn't really a well thought-out plot, and here the snags are showing...There are also two main "central issues" or, "central dilemma" if you will, to the story. One, is Maxine's journey to self-discovery and burgeoning powers and, second, is the first "demon from the veil" encounter in Maxine's lifetime. The second "central dilemma" was satisfactorily closed with the ending with a bang. While the first "central issue" seems to be an ongoing process. The ending therefore closed the book but also left it hanging. This took the steam off the climax of the story. I would give the ending a 3.5 out of 5.Overall, I think this is still a wonderful start to what is looking like a worderful series! I enjoyed this book and would read another Marjorie Liu work again. I'd give this book a 3.5 out of 5.
    • 4/5
      This book is a great beginning to a unique series idea. This book introduces you to all the characters and given what you need to love them, along with the fast pacing to keep you going. The book is VERY well written to make me love and hate the characters with Maxine as we go through the story. I loved how there are many different demons and creatures. By the end of the book, I felt I knew the characters well, but had many curiosities of them. My curiosities were not from a lack in the story, but more of my thinking on the characters afterward. Where they are from and what they could truely be capable of.There are things here that Marjorie lays out for you to foresee in the story, but there are so many unpredictable happenings, and appearances as well. You get pieces of the plot to puzzle together as the story goes and it keeps you wanting more. I didn't want to put the book down. Another great book where I tried to make stopping points but just could NOT find one, I had to keep reading to find out what happens and what creature am I going to meet next.I do have to mention the '80s references ~ on the radio and tv reruns. The references are in no way over done. I enjoyed the subtlety of them, since I too am an '80s lover.One of my favorite characters in the book were the tattoos. I loved the WHOLE idea with/of them. The way they live, protecting Maxine both day and night in different ways. The way they help guide Maxine even when they are sleeping. This is an amazing creation that I look forward to reading more of.The only thing with this story was I felt, in the first fifty pages or so, I had missed some information. Maybe I missed a story that preceded this book or maybe this is information that is left open to be discussed in future books. Either way it did not hinder the book in any way and keeps a little mystery in the book and future installments for me.In the end, I loved this books' plot and the characters. I would recommend this book to anyone loving paranormal books.
    • 3/5
      I'm glad I persisted past the first third. Initial language choppy. Short sentences. Fragments.

      Fortunately, it got better, though I am left to wonder why the tone/language changed.

      Bold choice in starting the series off sort of in media res for the heroine. She's grown up with her worldview, so it's not as though we missed the masquerade faltering when she hears The Call. She's settled, has a long-term boyfriend who she rescued from darkness and knows her unique situation, she's got an established enemy/antagonist. This serves to get the end of days plot going without lingering over lifestyle exposition, but it was also harder to accept those preexisting things, sort of. I guess other fiction has messed with my expectations of How Events Should Go.

      Still digesting things. It's not quite resonating with me, and I'm not rushing to download the next book (and not just because I have 6 more library ebooks waiting), but I think I will definitely be reading the next one.
    • 3/5
      The premise of THE IRON HUNT is great - ten thousand years ago a horde of demons was contained in a prison, and Wardens were created to police the earth and capture any escapees. But the Wardens were limited in number, and over the years escaped demons have killed every Warden but one: Maxine Kiss. What's worse, the prison itself is failing and Maxine has no hope of preventing the global annihilation that looms closer and closer on the horizon.

      The supernatural twist is that Maxine has a motley crew of allies: little demons that accompany her like a ragtag army at night, but adhere to her skin during the day as tattoos and render her physically invulnerable. It's a pretty cool idea, and the dynamic between Maxine and her demon protectors is engaging.

      There's a lot of good stuff going on with THE IRON HUNT - the problem is that Marjorie M. Liu's writing is somewhat overwrought. This is a sample of what I mean:

      "Shadows shifted, stretching like mouths across the room, spreading and rising from the floor and walls in churning waves. Like oil running up walls, or the abyss of Oturu's cloak, full of pressed faces and twisted bodies. A breathing, aching darkness; a tsunami of soul cages; demons hurled and writhing. The apartment grew dark and closed, as suffocating as the Wasteland, and it was the wall of demons who made it so; entombing, consuming us."

      It's beautiful, it's intense, it's vivid, and it's also constant. Every paragraph is stuffed to the gills with dramatic metaphors and dramatic imagery and dramatic tension. If she used this kind of language more infrequently, waiting for the right moment to pull out all the stops and wow us, I'd be a lot more impressed. Instead, I felt the writing actually interfered with my ability to follow the story and engage with the characters.

      By the same token, I think that Liu made a mistake with THE IRON HUNT by turning the "mysterious" dial up to 11. Almost every character in the novel, other than Maxine, at some point taunts her with knowledge they cannot, or will not, share. Her little army of demons have made promises to keep quiet; her enemies have no interest in telling her what she doesn't know; while her more provisional allies seem to keep secrets just for the hell of it. A lot of the time the mystery is much bigger than the secret, which is easy to guess and fairly obvious; this has an unfortunate Wizard of Oz effect. In general, I feel like a little bit less mystery would have allowed for a lot more plot.

      I'm on the fence about this book in the end. On the one hand, I really enjoy the premise and the characters. It's a smart book, and Liu is capable of really incredible writing. That's enough to make me curious about the series to come. On the other hand, if I get more of this overwrought language and atmosphere drenched in mysterious mystery this series will sink to the bottom of my list real fast.
    • 4/5
      While the cover art might remind one of a romance novel, and there's some of that here, what you mostly have is a character study of a woman doomed to be a paladin, and how the great adventure begins for her. As for flavor, think less "Buffy" and more one of Michael Moorcock's eternal heroes, as there's very little cute about Maxine Kiss, who was bred for a purpose and knows it.
    • 3/5
      I like the idea behind the book, and I thought it was well executed, for the most part. I did feel like it never reached the confrontation it was leading up to...is it a series? If so, you can't really tell that, either. It left me wanting resolution and a little confused about what happened in the plot. I would read another book by her, but I want a better sense of story fulfillment.

      And, ugh! I just read the little blurb associated with the book: it's much better than that! And while there is a romantic element, it is not the driving theme behind the book by any stretch of the imagination.
    • 1/5
      Stilted writing. Writes without all words, expects you'll understand. Frequently, subjects not in sentences, verbs missing, commas instead of conjunctions, articles optional. Strange clauses strung together as one sentence, all in one, as one. Words. Phrases. Without grammar. Just a period. Sentence structure awkward, reading exhausting, what's happening unclear. Excerpt in book summary is an example. Not too bad, but whole book like that. But worse. Very confusing beginning, can't read more, too tedious. Others say writing good, I say trying too hard.
    • 2/5
      Reading this book was like taking an acid trip in my perceptions. (never having dropped acid). The prose are frenetic and wierdly descriptive. I felt off balance and unsure of what the parameters of the book world were. Because of this it was a particularly emotional read defying most logic. The strangeness behind the author's words lunging forward and receding.I didn't NEED to finish this book because I knew the ending like the whole book would be ephemeral.I didn't WANT to finish this book the way I often want to find out what happens in other reads.I CHOSE to finish the book to say that I did.I find it very curious that it is Book 1 of a series. Nothing compels me to sign up for another round.
    • 3/5
      When a demon possesses a human, Maxine Kiss calls them zombies. Maxine is a hunter that takes the demons out of the humans and with the help of her own little demons. Her love, Grant Cooperon has an interest in demons also, but he thinks his music can help the demons to make better choices and be better people. Together they are trying to deal with the information that the prison veil that has held the demons for so long is falling. Very interesting story, really enjoyed the characters. Too much happened in this story, I was easily confused by the twists and turns. I wanted more explanation to a lot of the things that happened. I got that part of the problem Maxine was having was due to all the secrets being kept, but there just seemed to be too much kept as secret even from the reader. I believe this is going to be a series, I hope that there is more time spent in explanation and less in keeping the secrets so secret. Even after reading the short story (in ‘Wild Thing’ anthology which acts as a prequel), I still struggled to understand some of it, but it is such a creative idea with some great characters.
    • 4/5
      From Goodreads:"Demon hunter Maxine Kiss wears her armor as tattoos, which unwind from her body to take on forms of their own at night. They stand between her and her enemies, just as Maxine stands between humanity and the demons breaking out from behind the prison veils. It is a life lacking in love, reveling in death, until one moment-and one man-changes everything."My Thoughts:The Iron Hunt was an interesting beginning to this urban fantasy series and different from a lot of the other books that are out there. Maxine is the only person fighting against the demons that are starting to break out from the prison that they have been trapped in for years. And her help comes from the tattoos on her body...tattoos that are actual demons that come off of her at nighttime. This made such an interesting premise for the story that I was hooked from the beginning. Maxine was a very different main character: at times she was very strong and seemed capable of handling anything, and at others she was filled with self doubt and seemed weak. It made her seem very realistic as all of these changes in personality are coming at a time when everything she knows is being turned upside down. The rules that she was taught as a child seem to be changing and it seems as if her dead mother didn't tell her everything that she would need to know. All of the questions and suspense made for a really good read. But. My only problem was that you could really tell that this was the beginning of the series. It seemed like there was a lot of setup for what was to come and not enough development within this book. And I wanted more answers for Maxine and just didn't get them. So it looks like I really need to pick up the next book and fast ;)All in all, a good beginning to this urban fantasy series and another author that I will be following closely. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the storyline develops in the next book!
    • 4/5
      This is a promising first book in a series. I really liked the idea of demons that lived as tattoos on Maxine's skin and I like that the demons acted like mischievous pets when off her skin. The book was a bit confusing at times, but I think that was intentional. I felt like I was reading the second book in a series rather than the first. Maxine's past with Grant is an interesting one and I think it probably could have been its own book rather than revealed in bits and pieces as back story. That, more than anything, made me wonder if I'd missed the first book in a series. Living demon tattoos aside, the way the world is setup is not particularly new but it's still fun to read about and I enjoy the characters.
    • 4/5
      Maxine Kiss was raised by her mother to be a loner and a nomad, moving place to place, keeping to herself, having no friends outside of the boys. The boys are her living tattoos that she wears on her body by day, they peel away at night to become her personal, demon protectors that she lovingly calls "my boys". Maxine is from a warrior race of demons created long ago to guard the humans from the demons and zombies. She is the last of her line and they call her The Hunter.Going against family tradition, Maxine has put down some roots with Grant Cooperon, who has a few special gifts of his own, in Seattle, Washington at the Coop, a homeless shelter owned by Grant. Grant is also a former priest. Maxine has some trepidations about about living with Grant but she loves him and can't keep herself from not staying with him. In Maxine's own words:"Grant Cooperon, my magic bullet. And it was going to kill me one day."Maxine senses that the veil, a prison created ten thousands years ago to imprison the most dangerous of demons, has opened and something evil has slipped through the cracks to earth's realm. Maxine has to find out what slipped through, before it finds her.I love the way Marjorie M. Liu writes, her words are like poetry, the way they flow off the page. It was a treat to read The Iron Hunt coupled with Ms. Liu's writing style and an introduction into world of demons that is a rare one with many dimensions to explore. I enjoyed the closeness and companionship that Maxine shares with her boys. The romance in this story is very subtle, the love shared between Grant and Maxine is unquestionable from the very the start. Which I think is refreshing to see the protagonist in a solid relationship throughout the story. Maxine Kiss is a strong, warrior through and through but she is also kind, she has a softer side.This is a read that requires your full attention because there is so much going on every page. At times the story can be dark and bleak. The Iron Hunt is an engrossing, solid story with action throughout it's pages. The end ties up the major plot point of this story but leaves a lot questions needing answers. Most of those questions are answered in Darkness Calls.The Iron Hunt has a prequel Hunter Kiss, a novella in the Wild Thing anthology. I did not read the prequel and feel it didn't hinder the story in any way.
    • 1/5
      I struggled through most of this book to visualize what this author was trying conceptualize but I did not get it. I found the story unappealing and am hesitant to pick up another book written by her. It was confusing to follow as others have said.
    • 4/5
      An entertaining homage to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with enough new ideas that it keeps a reader's interest, and some laugh-out-loud lines here and there. The prose is a bit raw here and there, and the story does a lot of exposition for setting up a series; Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden books do a better job of being self-contained with a slow buildup of the long-term plot.
    • 5/5
      I may be generous with my stars - it's possible. I rarely find a book that I don't like. In this case, I'd LOVED this story. So far I'm not sure if there is a sequel or not. If there isn't, there really really needs to be. The story just doesn't seem finished. Imagine a woman covered in tattoos during the day. At night her tattoos peel away into demons, destined to protect her and love her. They have been passed down through the generations of women in her family. She is a demon hunter and by day her guardians protect her skin while at night they fight beside her. Terrific story! The majority of this book focused on discovering who she is on the inside and learning about her family. Yes there is some action and some fights, but the book just leads us to think there should be so much more. That's why I'm hoping there's a second in the works.
    • 4/5
      Maxine Kiss has her very own demons. So, who doesn't? But do yours peel off, attack, and eat anything that threatens you? Didn't think so.Covered by tattoos that make her indestructible by day, and writhe free at sunset to shred teddy bears and wreck havoc, Kiss is a Hunter. The last Hunter. The only thing that stands between humanity and zombification by demonic possession. But the zombies are only minor demons. They can occasionally slip between the prison veils holding hordes of hungry evil from Earth's tempting, tasty masses of humanity. And they're bad enough. The major demons are caged, but....Now, after thousands of years, the veils are weakening and something... something dangerous has come through. Maxine, Zee and the boys have their work cut out for them, with whatever help a flute player, an old man, and an odd pair of demons might be willing, or able, to provide.The opening is missing a lot of details, which makes the plot a bit hard to follow. Fortunately, a few chapters in things settle down and start to make more sense. The start's a bit rocky, but this has the makings of a good series.
    • 4/5
      I like Liu's writing style. This was a really intriguing book. While it had similar themes to the Crimson City series and other books in the paranormal genre, it stood out. The main character is a demon hunter who had five small demons that live on her skin as tattoos during the day and then come off her at night to fight demons. In this first book of a series, we are introduced to Maxine and her world. My only real issue with the book is it was sometimes difficult to follow all of the varying characters. I am looking forward to the next book in the series.
    • 3/5
      A bit Buffyish - one in each generation, born to it, passed from mother to daughter... but nice world buiding and very nice nuance around the 'boys' who are tattoos during the day, which more or less render Maxine Kiss invinceable, but leave at nightfall, becoming demons. Maxine has her posse incl. the beloved and mysterious Grant. I liked the world building and liked the writing style, but it's the sort of book I enjoy reading and then have a bit of trouble remembering what it was about afterwads. The build up was good but the ending felt rushed, a far too quick resolution and lots of issues left hanging. Clearly the set up for a series, but the evil demon of this book just went 'poof' and was gone...