ARC Review: The Devil's Reprise by Karina Halle

Title: The Devil's Reprise
Author: Karina Halle
Series: Devils #2
Release Date: October 29th, 2012
Publisher: Diversion Books
Buy:  -

Goodreads Summary

Given a second chance, music journalist Dawn Emerson and guitarist Sage Knightly are reunited, only to have their lives threatened again by a demonic bargain. The sequel to THE DEVIL’S METAL, from USA Today bestselling author Karina Halle.

When Dawn Emerson got the chance to go on tour with her favorite metal band, Hybrid, she thought she landed the writing gig of the century. But what started off as a dream for the budding music journalist quickly turned into a nightmare that she and guitarist Sage Knightly barely escaped alive.

Now, months after they went their separate ways, Sage invites Dawn to accompany him on his first solo tour across Europe and write about it for Creem Magazine. But like the last tour, nothing is as easy as it seems. Sage is a broken man on the path to self-destruction and Dawn isn’t sure if she’s the right person to save him. And aside from having to pick up the pieces of their burgeoning relationship, they have to negotiate the mysterious new photographer assigned to Dawn’s story, as well as vindictive promoters and demonic groupies they thought they’d never see again.

Because this time, it’s Dawn who made a deal with the devil and the only thing worse than having to uphold a bargain with the prince of darkness is not remembering how you’re supposed to pay it back.

It may be with their souls.

“Be careful what she wished for”

I honestly expected a lot more from this book. It was a pretty short read in general but so much more could have been done. I don’t mean to say that it was bad, it was a really fun read but I just wanted more.

This book is written in Dual POV and while that doesn’t always work out, it definitely worked in favor of this book. It made it a lot easier to enjoy the book and not only because we finally got to be inside of Sage’s mind. There were just times when it was so much easier to be in the other person’s head, for example, when Dawn went all jealous on me, I found it a relief to be in Sage’s head. Similarly when Sage went all douchebaggy on me, I preferred Dawn’s mind.

This time around it was Dawn who made ‘a mistake’ by making a deal with the devil, but she doesn’t even remember doing it. She still remains a pretty great female lead. She does have a few moments where I want to smack her but she pulled through in the end. I could say more about her but there isn’t much of a point because even though she is the one who made the deal, this was definitely Sage’s story.

“It should have been me.

But it wasn’t.

And the music played on”

Sage is basically a mess after the events of the last book. He is full of self-loathing and pain. He blames himself for what happened. He doesn’t think he should have survived. He just wants to be numb because he cannot live with himself half of the time. His best friend won’t talk to him and Noelle is a mess, and will probably remain that way for the rest of her life.

 At the beginning of the book he is a shell of a person, always drunk out of his mind and high on something. Sound familiar? No? That’s because he changed completely. Even music, the one thing he loved, doesn’t bring him the peace he needs. He is floating through life. And then Dawn comes back. Oh it takes him a while to actually see through his haze of self-hatred and man up, but when he does, it’s definitely worth it. It was great to see him come such long ways from the beginning of the book to where he was at the end of it.

He had some help of course, from his manager Jacob. It was actually refreshing to see how little he had changed. He obviously cared a great deal about Sage but you know, he has got to make his money. The show must go on even if lives are at stake. We did get to learn some about his past so that was nice.

There are new secondary characters as well, Max and Tricky. Tricky was mostly in the background and Max, well I don’t know what to say about him because honestly, I still don’t know how I feel about him.

I think the main reason this book didn’t work for me was because the magic of the first book came from the band and there wasn’t a band in this book. It was mostly a one man’s show. You didn’t get to see how the band interacted with each other and how despite all their issues they were really great people. I missed all of them so much.  

The book was definitely a whole lot creepier this time around. Which made it so much more exciting. The plot was well paced and like I mentioned before, the book was a quick read. I was sad to see it end so soon.

I have to admit though; I did NOT like the epilogue. It just seemed so unnecessary and cheesy in some ways. The book could have definitely done without it.

On the whole this was a pretty decent sequel. You could tell that Karina had actually planned the whole thing out instead of just writing a sequel just for the sake of it. 

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.