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Tuesday, October 05, 2010

DEMON PRINCESS: REIGN CHECK By Michelle Rowan. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2010.



This is the second in a series. I haven’t read the first book, Reign Or Shine; this one closes with loose ends untied, so will probably continue for some time.

Nikki Donovan is an ordinary American teenager who has a tendency to sprout horns, wings and a tail when she’s highly stressed. A nuisance for clothes, of course, and really not a good idea to do it in front of others, especially if your best friend is in training to be a demon slayer. So far, it’s only been seen by a boy who went too far after a school dance and Nikki hopes he might be persuaded that he saw nothing.

Somewhere in the Shadowlands lives Nikki’s father, a demon King who once visited our world, just long enough to become her father. King Desmond can’t leave his castle – and if Nikki ever becomes Queen, she’ll have the same problem. Meanwhile, there’s the gorgeous Shadow, Michael, who is bound to her as a servant, though she’d rather have him as a boyfriend. There’s the rather cute teenage Faerie King Rhys, who has heard a negative prophecy about Nikki and come to investigate. Two hot boys! Decisions, decisions!

The writing style and the tongue-in-cheek punning title show that the author doesn’t take the whole idea too seriously; whether young readers will or not is another matter. They’ll certainly enjoy the usual paranormal romance theme, plus the idea of the heroine being a princess of whatever variety. Mind you, I’m not too sure anyone would really want to sprout horns and tail under stress, even if it did mean being a princess and falling in love with hot paranormal boys. Which is probably the point of the story.

Good fun for girls from about fourteen up.

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