4 out of 5 Stars

Thank you to Xpresso Book Tours for inviting me on the tour!

Synopsis

Some people have school spirit.

Shelby Black has real ones.

Shelby Black has spent the past six months training to be an exorcist. Her great-uncle Roy―a Catholic priest―has put her through exorcist boot camp hell, hoping to develop her talent, but ohmygod, he still doesn’t trust her to do an exorcism on her own.

High school is hard enough without having to explain that you fight demons for a living, so Shelby keeps her extracurricular activity to herself. The last thing she wants is for her crush, Spencer, to find out what she does in her off time.

But Shelby knows how to keep a secret―even a big one. Like the fact that her mom left under mysterious circumstances and it’s all her fault. Shelby is hellbent on finding her mom, no matter what it costs her―even if what it ends up costing her is her soul AND a relationship with Spencer.

My Thoughts

This book was very “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”! How do you deal with the perils of high school, trying to start a relationship AND exorcising demons?? I couldn’t even imagine! I couldn’t even handle just going to class and dealing with boys!

I enjoyed the budding relationship between Shelby and Spencer, I thought that the awkward moments and dialogue between them were very authentic, I could almost feel the butterflies and electricity between the two, remembering those first moments of glances and “accidental” touches with old love’s myself!

“He doesn’t move his leg, not for the next forty minutes while we work through the practice questions. It’s distracting, for sure, but I try to pay attention. But, it’s hard because I hate geometry, and also, our legs are touching!”

My one complaint would be Shelby coming clean about being an exorcist. It was a little weird. The whole situation came out of nowhere, it’s not really addressed properly, and then Spencer just says,

“You’re a demon hunter?”

“”I, uh, I just need a minute to think.”

….Really? I won’t give too much away, it all kind of makes sense… but, this scene was just a little lack luster to me.

The relationship between Shelby and her Uncle Roy was adorable. He’s such a sweet man, no matter how hard he is on her with her training, and obviously she agrees with the amount of care she puts into looking after his health even when they aren’t getting along. I really want to know how old Uncle Roy really was though, because Shelby likes to make comments about him being around for centuries and such and I started thinking, is this just typical teenage exaggeration, or is there something to the exorcist life that I’m missing??

All in all a charming YA supernatural gem and I would definitely recommend it

Author Bio

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When Life Gives you Demons is Best Served with a Blue Devil Cocktail