Josh Reviews: Where Demons Fear to Tread by Stephanie Chong

Where Demons Fear to Tread by Stephanie Chong
Series: The Company of Angels #1
Published by Mira Books
Published on: August 23rd, 2011
Genres: Paranormal Romance
Pages: 358
Format: Paperback
Source: Borrowed

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Fledging guardian angel and yoga teacher Serena St. Clair dares to enter Devil's Paradise nightclub on a mission—to retrieve the wayward Hollywood "It Boy" she's assigned to protect. But she's ambushed by the club's owner, arch demon Julian Ascher. The most powerful demonic entity in Los Angeles, Julian is handsome as sin, a master of temptation who loves nothing more than corrupting pleasure-seeking humans. He won't release the lost soul Serena is supposed to guard. Unless she accepts his dangerous wager…....

After the disastrous way his human life ended, Julian vowed that no woman would get the better of him again. Yet this sexy-sweet angel, smelling of fresh ocean air and happiness, triggers centuries-old feelings. Now, their high-stakes game of seduction, where angels fall from grace and where demons fear to tread, will lead them either to an eternity in hell… or a deliciously hot heaven.

Where Demons Fear to Tread will please anyone who with a short sampling intelligence, like me, hears a pseudo Italian/Jamaican accent say the word ‘angel’ when he reads ‘angel’ and a frustrated white-collar psychopath say ‘demon’ when he reads ‘demon’.    It is too much fun seeing how pure the ‘angel’ must be as versus her ‘demonic’ love-interest (that isn’t a spoiler is it?).

I mean things do get hot and heavy by page twenty or so.   Then it sort of lays off the gas so that the two of them, Serena and Julian, can get to know each other.   By the time, they do intermingle it still seems like both their characters take 180 flips, but that’s half the fun, no?

Regardless one can say for a surety the morality of these characters is not simply black and white.   In terms of scenery, the Los Angeles and Las Vegas set pieces, fairly breezy on the one hand and excessively beepy and nocturnal on the other, are not mere backdrops, and if they are, they are provided lavish detail, so they are, at least, lavish backdrops.   I also enjoyed somewhat long-winded and, therefore, controversial back-stories, which, sure, were just laid out there, but, at least, it took a while for them to appear.

Perhaps the continual mention of the recyclability of souls could have been more a point of departure, or even a jumping-off point for the reveal of even more past lives.   Could the angel have been a demon before she was human, could the demon have been an angel before he was human, etc., etc.?   Having already read the sequel, I can confirm that characterizations will continue to complexify, but I won’t mention as regarding who.   It was a provocative decision to characterize whoever it was.

Books in this series:
	My Review

Recommended:	For those liking the sound of Vegas
Like this, like that:	Demons Unleashed series by Sidney Ayers and the Grigori Legacy series by Linda Poitevin

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