Review: The Devil's Metal by Karina Halle

Title: The Devil's Metal
Author: Karina Halle
Series: Devils #1
Release Date: September 21st, 2012
Publisher: Diversion Books
Buy:  Amazon | BookDepository

Goodreads Summary

It’s the summer of 1974 and 21-year old Dawn Emerson has only three things she wants to do: compete one last time in the Ellensburg Rodeo, win back her ex-boyfriend Ryan, and become the best damn music journalist at Central Washington University. But all her plans are left in the dust when she’s contacted by Creem magazine to go on the road with one of her favorite groups, the up-and-coming metal band, Hybrid.

At first the assignment reads like a dream come true. Not only will Dawn land some much-needed credibility as a female music journalist, but she’ll finally get to experience life from the other side of the stage, and maybe crack the drunken, enigmatic code that is guitarist Sage Knightly. Instead, Dawn finds herself on an aging tour bus filled with ego-maniacs, band politics and a whole lot of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. When monsters start showing up in dressing rooms and some of Sage’s groupies become increasingly strange and dangerous, Dawn discovers the band is not only going places – they’re going straight to Hell.

And Dawn has a backstage pass.

My luck with books involving rock stars/bands has been shit so the only reason I even read this was because it was by Halle. If anyone could pull it off it would be Karina. And I wasn’t wrong. 

Karina has this special knack for originality. She takes ‘common ideas’ and works her magic on them and they come out full of awesome. 

I actually thought the fact that this book was set in the 70’s would have been a setback for me as a reader but it turned out to be one of things I loved most about the book. It made it feel even more real and gave it a whole other atmosphere.

Dawn is a small town girl. She loves music. She is a music journalist but because she is a female most people don’t give her much credit. She hasn’t had a breakthrough in months until she is offered a job to write a piece on Hybrid, one of her favorite bands. 

Let me start off by saying that the part about her ex -boyfriend has no relevance what so ever. He is only mentioned and that too in the beginning. 

Getting back to Dawn, I loved being in her head. I couldn’t help but relate to her, from the parts about being disappointed to the whole ‘reviewing process’ and even her nerves about doing the whole thing. She was a great main character. She makes mistakes but she is so strong. Even with all her excitement about being with the band, she isn’t so star struck to pick up on their faults but even then she accepts them because well, they are only human (…. :P :P :P if you’ve read the book you’ll get what I am making tongue faces about). 

Sage, well, we don’t really know much about him seeing that he is so secretive but as he and Dawn get closer you get to learn quite a bit about. While I liked him, I didn’t really love him until the ending and it wasn’t because we finally got the whole picture about him. It was because of what he did, that truthful moment because if he had said something other than what he had it wouldn’t have worked. Karina knows that too. So she did justice to his character by making it end the way it did. I actually cannot wait to read the next book and be in his head and see how things turn around with him.

The band was so FUN to read about. Their interactions with each other, their interactions with Dawn. EVERYTHING. I loved getting to know them better. Seeing their faults and weaknesses. My favorite one out of all of them was Bob, yes he wasn’t a band member but I cannot help but adore him. He is so cool! 

Jacob, however, was the most interesting of the lot, even more so than Graham. He was the one character who you couldn’t quite pinpoint. What were his motives? Was he the good or bad guy? It wasn’t until the end when you actually got a little insight into his character.

The plot was pretty amazing. It was pretty fast, I found myself worrying the book would end too soon, which it did. I will however admit to expecting more in the ‘creepy’ area from this book because compared to the creepiness level of her EIT series, this was nothing.

I cannot wait to read the sequel and even my short wait for about a week seems too long. 

READ THIS PEOPLE.