“The best part of my new life was that nobody needed an exorcism. And there was no talk of urine-based spells.”
Welcome to the wild world of Pocket Demons, where Cute Corgis and Minotaur roam free, and exorcism cakes are the dessert of choice! If this quirky combo piques your interest, buckle up with this book for a devilishly good time. Because trust me, when a devil is lurking in every dark corner, you know you’re in for a wild ride!
A little background info on how I got to this book: When I signed up to review it with The Nerd Fam, I never imagined I’d read it before release! But to my surprise, just a few days after registering, my first ARC arrived, and I dove right in. The funny thing is that I had not read a scary mystery in a while, so I was up for a ride I did not expect based on the cute cover.
Here’s some basic info about the book: A Devil in Every Dark Corner by Amanda Braune Boe is the first in the Otherworldly Investigations series, published on October 22, 2024. It’s a spooky mystery/horror story with plenty of hilarious banter between the main characters.
Because it is spooky season and this is a spooky book, I will give a rating of ?, where 5 ? is the highest and 1 ? is the lowest.
Please be aware that the review is full of spoilers. The first part has mild spoilers, and the final part has heavy spoilers of the ending!
Review
Overall Rating: 5/5🎃
Characters:
Atmosphere:
Plot:
Logic/Relationships:
Enjoyment:
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Welcome to the Otherworldly Investigations. Sit down, take a piece of exorcist cake, and enjoy the ride Amanda prepared for us. On our journey, our narrator will be Imogen, or as her sister Carmen calls her, Igi. Imogen is a witch who hates to be a witch. I found this concept funny because every woman I know wishes to be a witch, and here I am reading about one who hates it and is on the run from her nature, her loving family, and their business. How foolish?
“A stomachache is not a portent of doom. Plenty of people get them. Normal people. They get up, do what they must, and go to bed. Sometimes, if they’re lucky, maybe they get takeout Indian food. Stop being a witch, bitch.”
In a book, we are often taken down memory lanes, where we learn little about our main characters and their backstories.
For example, Imogen describes how she met Lulu, owner of the bakery where she now works. A little later, she will tell us a story about her and her younger sister Carmen and how they decided on a safe word when danger was nearby.
Amanda wrote three different personalities so well that I was invested in their stories from the beginning.
“My sister is known for her hospitality,” I said. “And for being cordial and having friends. But not me. I’m virtually friendless, thought of by most as a bitch, and more than a little rattled by a current matter we’re dealing with. So, excuse me for cutting out the pleasant chit-chat, but who the hell are you, and what the hell do you want?”
Imogen is a little grumpy and fighting her fear of her nature and magic, but she has a great sense of humor, and her snarky comments are pure gold.
“”Immy,” she said quietly. “It’s a chainsaw!” It was an STIHL 038 Magnum, to be exact. Its chain was rusty from sitting so long. “Isn’t it darling?” asked Carmen, whispering.”
Carmen is a sunshine character, but later in the book, she also shows some sad emotions. She is so driven that even I feel motivated to do something with my life.
Also, we will meet with Carmen in dog form. Yes, my dears, she is in the form of a cute little corgi. Now, tell me not to love the book.
Lulu kept nudging me. She pointed at the minotaur and whispered, “A devil! I bagged my first devil!”
Lulu is the only human among our main characters, but she is not scared, and her humor makes me laugh so many times throughout the book.
After the first few pages, I thought, “This will be a cute little witchy mystery”—nothing hard on my feelings, nothing too special. Oh, how wrong I was… After cutesy scenes with sisters and their family I was introduced to frightening reality that this book may have lot of banter and funny characters. Still, Amanda’s ability to write genuinely scary scenes had me considering putting the book down for a moment… And yes, that scene is when we meet the villain of the story, the Thistle Witch, for the first time.
I will have a little sidestep here. The scene with the bogeyman is so unnerving that, as the mother of two boys, it made my anxiety fly through the roof. There’s nothing more important than our health (mental or physical ), and although this book is not as dark as many others, it is still partly horror, so this is a special warning:
Please ensure you read the trigger warning at the beginning of the book before you start.
“But somehow or another, she never was good, was she? Whether she was human or dog, she never ended up being good. And she knew she could be good if she wanted. She would be so good at being good if she really put in an effort and tried. But she never really tried, did she? She wondered why that was. She decided next time, she’d be good. Next time, she’d be good for sure. She’d be somebody’s good dog just as soon as this was all over. And if not next time, surely the time after that.”
Let’s continue…
Thistle Witch will make her first appearance in the initial two horror chapters, seen through the eyes of the little boy and victim’s roommate. The first scene will feature her as the bogeyman, haunting a young boy and attacking his father. The second scene will be shown from the perspective of Shannon, who works with Imogen and Lulu, with the victim being Shannon’s roommate. Shannon will survive and witness Thistle Witch as a dog and in her true form, wearing a brown dress and a mask. As the story continues, we will also see some scenes from Thistle Witch’s point of view, which I found interesting as it is quite unsettling to delve into the antagonist’s mind. Amanda’s display of the villain, who is not a villain by choice but by nature, was exceptionally well-executed.
“Do not be afraid,” he said. “I have not consumed human flesh for many a moon. Since long before your grandparents and their grandparents before them were runny- nosed little human babies. I seek refuge! Do you not aid the pathetic, weak, and frightened? For I am one such soul today! Open the door, lest my large, beautiful form be ripped into food for scavengers.”
Let’s move to the three more characters introduced later in the story: Minotaur Hector, Demon Chad, and Fairy Lubberkin.
I had a particular narrator in my head the whole time for Hector, and I could not pinpoint who he was until I reread some parts for this review, and then it finally clicked. For me, Hector sounds like Minsk from Baldur’s Gate 3. The way his dialog is written, in my mind, he sounds just like him. He feels like a big giant teddy bear with a murderous history that is now lost in the modern world.
Chace smiled at the Thistle Witch. “They’re going to turn you inside out. I wish I could be there to see it.” “But you will be there,” said the Thistle Witch, standing tall again. Chace’s eyes seemed to brighten at the realization. “I will be,” he said. “Won’t I? You can weave me into your murder machine and make me fight against them, but I get to be there when they defeat you. There’s that, at least.” “Hear, hear,” said Hector, smiling.
Chad, on the other hand, is your typical ex-fiancé —well, maybe not so typical because he is a demon wearing human skin who wants to break Imogen’s heart after their wedding because some revenge and spell need the broken heart of a witch. Also, he is set in a magical dungeon that they built under their shed. Ups.
So, he may not be your typical ex-fiancé in this way. But he redeems himself at the end of the book when he stands up for Imogen and Carmen in front of Thistle Witch.
“That is not how I pictured a fairy,” she said. “What were you thinking?” I asked. Lulu shrugged. “Not someone with a five o’clock shadow,” she said. “Or someone who looks like they know how to make a batch of special brownies.”
The last one from our trio of cryptids is Fairy Lubberkin. Romantasy readers don’t get all excited. Lubberkin is not your kind of Fairy? He does not surprise only our main characters but also me. Amanda took a different view of Fairy when she made him a hippie from the seventies who owns an ice cream shop. Most of the time, he sounds like that old hippie from the show That ’70s.
The special mention of the introduction of cute little pocket demons (some little scary, some little assholes ?) was genius. I loved to read about them. They are like little Pokémons that adore mostly only Carmen because she is so sunshiny that she loves even those that are prickly little bastards.
Spoilers
Spoilers
I loved all the characters in the book and was hooked from the beginning, and they are the main reasons I gave this book 5-star reviews, even though the plot’s resolution seems to me a little rushed. Imi, Lulu, and Carmen had so much potential that winning the battle with Thistle Witch just because their parents had contact with Fairy, which would boost their powers, was a missed opportunity. But it did not cut from the story, so I am okay with that. I will not talk about that. I cried like a baby when Hector and Chad died at the end of the book; take it as a token of how well Amanda wrote these characters. One more thing I was not content with was how the final battle ended. Please don’t assume that the battle was grand, but I missed some views from Thistle Witch’s perspective. I would love to see what she thinks when she turns to the dog.