Title:Monster in My Closet
Author: R.L. Naquin,
Publisher: Carina Press
Genre: ADULT: Fantasy
I loved this. I’d just read a really bleak book, then I opened this up and breathed a sigh of relief. It was warm, funny, well written and had a fresh perspective.
I stopped believing in monsters long ago. But I knew I wasn’t imagining things when I found one in my kitchen baking muffins. I’d seen him before: lurking in my closet, scaring the crap out of my five-year-old self. Turns out that was a misunderstanding, and now Maurice needs a place to stay. How could I say no?
After all, I’ve always been a magnet for the emotionally needy, and not just in my work as a wedding planner. Being able to sense the feelings of others can be a major pain. Don’t get me wrong, I like helping people-and non-people. But this ability has turned me into a gourmet feast for an incubus, a demon that feeds off emotional energy. Now, brides are dropping dead all over town, and my home has become a safe house for the supernatural. I must learn to focus my powers and defeat the demon before he snacks on another innocent woman and comes looking for the main course…
The characters in this are superb. Zoey is an ordinary kind of person, who wishes that she was one of those kick ass heroines with a black belt in several martial arts, however she isn’t, but by the end of the book, she’s managed to pull out her own special skills and use them. I love her dress sense—or lack of it—and the fact that she naturally wants to help people. It’s simply who she is. Too few characters in books have this kind of sensibility.
Maurice, the closet monster, is gorgeous, not in looks but in the way he cares for Zoey and cooks up a storm in the kitchen. I want a closet monster like that. Molly the brownie family’s mother and Andrew, the gay herbalist are two more loving characters, and it’s this kind of good heartedness that makes this book so warm. It’s like rolling yourself in a feather doona on a wet day.
The evil incubus is the ultimate sleaze bag, but unfortunately, he does have something to brag about. One touch from him and girls are throwing themselves at him. Trouble is, he’s greedy and he sucks them dry. Zoey has to find a way to stop him.
I also liked the way Zoey worked with emotional energy. I found the conceptual basis for this interesting and somewhat similar to what underpins my own work.
I can’t fault this book. It’s probably too light for those who like really dark, heavy stuff, but for me it was the perfect combination of drama, humour and romance. Recommended for when you want to immerse yourself in a jolly good story with people who are lovely to be with.
Oh, I forgot to mention Bruce, the hot pink pygmy dragon; you have to read it for that scene alone.
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