I accepted a copy of Xenia Melzer‘s Demon’s Wish (Demon Mates, #1) for review during it’s Totally Entwined Release Book Blitz. It was also over on Sadie’s Spotlight.

Finding love is hard—especially when you’re a demon and your potential mate is your sacrifice…

Sammy is content with running his bookshop and leading a book club consisting solely of paranormal creatures. Despite the persistence of his friends, he has resolved himself to a life without romance, since he doesn’t think anybody could find him and his tendency to spill useless knowledge whenever he gets nervous attractive.

Dresalantion is a demon prince and slightly—make that majorly—annoyed when somebody persistently tries to summon him. He finally decides to show up and put the fear of Dresalantion into his summoners but finds himself rescuing their sacrifice instead.

Sammy intrigues him from the get-go, and when Dre realizes that Sammy can get him the manga he’s been hunting for months—not to mention that he refuses a wish he offered him—the sexy demon decides to get to know this fascinating man better. Much better.

Reader advisory: This book contans scenes of kidnapping and an attempted human sacrifice.

The Good:

This is a seriously sweet, low angst story. Two men meet, are instantly attracted, fall in love quickly, and spend the whole book making each other happy, with no drama. Both characters are likeable. And the big, hulking demon just wanting to find his one special love breaks the alpha-asshole cliche. There’s also some appreciable diversity in the side characters. It’s an enjoyable read and is quite well edited.

The Meh:

The book got quite a few chuckles out of me. But some of that humor ran on the juvenile side. I think I cringed or rolled my eyes as often as I laughed. No demon should ever ask, “Do you have to go number one or two” if the author wants him to be taken seriously. just sayin’

Some of the dialogue was clunky, especially around saying names too often to feel natural. And I got bored with all the recitations of random facts and, even more so, with the lengthy book club discussions. They slowed the plot down.

The bad:

Let’s talk sex. The sex in this book is fairly graphic (if not particularly impassioned), with quite a lot of emphasis on penetrative sex and what’s going to go where and do what. Now, I have no problem with sex. I love me a raunchy sex scene. But I have a couple complaints here.

First, and probably most importantly, the books reads as if it’s written for and about teens. Sammy is in his mid-twenties and Dre is 800 years old, but you’d never know it from the writing. So, to read a book that feels quite young and then have sex scenes focused heavily on accommodating a monster cock (both in the sense that it belongs to a demon and is monster-huge) felt out of place. This book would have done better with fade-to-black sex, sweet sex, or simply to have brought the tone of the rest of the book up a few years, IMO.

Secondly, the author made a point to include an asexual character, so they’re aware not everyone loves sex or the same sort of sex. But then wrote a story that reinforced the myth that penetrative sex is the only real sex. It had to be had to for the plot and love to progress, whether the characters wanted it or not. And considering one character has a penis that is physically too large to be accommodated by the human body (and that’s not at all cliched, *eyeroll*), not wanting it would have made sense. Plus, it’s would have been a significantly more interesting exploration of the compromises mixed species relationships have to face. Instead the “special moment” was all about the mechanics of how to get one character’s cock inside another. *boring*

I could probably also address here how the smaller, more feminized character had to endure a painful physical transformation to be with the larger, more manly one. As well as how there was never any doubt or discussion about what role both would play in bed (though I’ll grant it was at least mentioned that the larger one was grudgingly willing to try switching in the future). And probably too that the mechanics of claiming a mate leaves no room for female demons to claim theirs, only to be claimed (not that that is at all addressed, there are no female demons in the book).

I feel like I had one more point to add here, but I’ve forgotten it apparently. All in all, I’d say that this is a sweet book let down by it’s sex. In fact, I feel like the sex was written by someone who’d either never had it or had been told they had to include it to get published and did so reluctantly. It feels that silted and focused on the least important parts of the sex act. But outside of that, it’s a fun little book.

Giveaway

Enter to win signed/personalized copies of books 1 & 2 in the Club Whisper series and a $5.00 First For Romance Gift Code!

Xenia Melzer’s Demon’s Wish Giveaway

XENIA MELZER IS GIVING AWAY THIS FABULOUS PRIZE TO ONE LUCKY WINNER. ENTER HERE FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN SIGNED/PERSONALIZED COPIES OF BOOKS 1 & 2 IN THE CLUB WHISPER SERIES AND A $5.00 FIRST FOR ROMANCE GIFT CODE! Notice: This competition ends on 13th January 2021 at 5pm GMT. Competition hosted by Totally Entwined Group.