Devil Music

for me, the premise did not reach the reality.

2.5 stars - rounded.
I was really excited when I read the blurb for this title, instantly I was thinking of metal bands and days at music festivals with lineups of 30 bands or more – the choices for music were outstanding, and there were several of the singers (and other band members) who would neatly fit into a ‘demonic’ persona. In fact, if I didn’t know better, some of my musician friends would have been super stand-ins for Cain in this book.

Aside from the music tie-ins, I couldn’t help but think of Lestat and his recount of his life in the ‘spotlight’. Everything here was pointing to a book that I wouldn’t be able to put down.

What happened was I lost my esteem for Cain early on, perhaps he wasn’t built with enough dimension for me, but I was a third of the way through and the book became a chore for me to read. Every few days I would pick it up again, hoping for more, better, something to grab on to.

Weeks later, and I finished the book, but I’m still wondering why there wasn’t a clear conclusion after multiple pages and passages of filler that was ultimately unhelpful and only served to clutter up an already rather ponderous read and plotting arc. Secondary characters were more filler than real to me, and while I could develop some empathy for Cain after his struggles, I didn’t come to enjoy him more, or find his story compelling. The addition of the killer, and the slow crawl to the reveal only answered some of the questions, and for this length and word count I expected tight conclusions and a solid sense of the whys and wherefores, not to be left with dangling ends and a need to read a second book to get more answers.

Prose was poetic and often quite beautiful, but the overabundance of descriptions without being directly related to a specific character, a lack of development of secondary characters, and the seeming approach of “let’s add some tension with a killer” angle just felt too contrived. Adding tension with development and editing to pare down the wordiness would have gone a long way in making this a more enjoyable read for me.

People who are fond of a story that takes frequent breaks to regroup without much forward motion, or characters that derive most of their development from interactions with one another and behave in often expected ways will find this to their liking. Sadly for me, the premise did not reach the reality.

I received an eBook copy of the title from Novel Publicity for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.