The Demon’s Librarian-Lilith Saintcrow

The Demon’s Librarian
Lilith Saintcrow
ImaJinn, Mar 2009, $14.00
ISBN: 9781933417448

She is the librarian in Jericho City who found a secret room filled with books of magical instructions and information. When Francesca “Chess” Barnes sees a demon eating a child, she vows to do something about that. She reads the books written by the founder of the Order, an organization pledged to keep humans safe. Chess learns spells including casting a demon out and owns a magic knife called Fang that can kill hell’s spawn, which she uses to eliminate one of these ugly amoral creatures.

Two men claiming to be from the Order arrive and ask if the founder of the Order’s library is in her library and she denies it. They smell the use of sorcery and Paul the Malik,, a human mage with magical powers, and Ryan, the Drakul half demon, which makes him a second class citizen in the Order, are in the front line war with the demons. Ryan follows Chess while Paul turns to another human he believes is using magic. Ryan realizes that Chess is using magic, but is much more as a Golden almost pure Phoenicus practitioner who if she attains her full potential will be able to kill even the almost invincible demonic High Ones. To his shock, Ryan falls in love with Chess, which may be the only reason she might survive as a traitor inside the Order knowing who she is wants to give her to the Inkani demons as a sacrifice for a rare rite.

The outwardly prim and proper (and underpaid) librarian gets down and dirty when she realizes the lethal threat to schools kids as her library is a battle zone between the paranormal and the normal. Ryan is the more intriguing character as he always assumed he was tainted with bad blood and the Order enforced his lack of self esteem (outside of his fighting demons); but Chess soothes the troubled beast through love. Lilith Saintcrow has written an enjoyable romantic urban fantasy in which the book world will agree don’t mess with THE DEMON’S LIBRARIAN as she silences the evil ones.

Harriet Klausner