Review: Demon Hunting in a Dive Bar by Lexi George

Series:  Demon Hunting #3

Pub. Date:  Jan. 1, 2013

Publisher:  Lyrical Press

Pages:  369

I stuck around the quirky southern town of Hannah, Alabama this week for an extra dose of raucous demon-hunting hilarity in the deep South. 

We met the heroine of this book, Rebekah "Beck" Damian, briefly in Demon Hunting in the Deep South during Evangeline and Lenora's man-hating drunk fest. Beck is a tough chick demonoid running a dive bar down by the river in backwoods Hannah.  The bar, named for its owner, caters solely to the supernatural and is filled with a wiley bunch of demonoids (a/k/a kith) that shift into a variety of animals including weasels, snakes, hawgs, coons, bears, and many other critters common to the South.  I liked Beck. She was a tough chick that wasn't afraid to suck a demon out of a possessed human and imprison said demon in her lava-lamp-like bar, or in a mason jar. No joke! But I also loved that she went all girly and squealy over a pair of pretty shoes. I can identify with the dual touch chick / girly girl persona. I also liked that once she and our hero started getting romantical, she stayed the course and didn't play wishy washy female.

Our hero is Conall, the leader of the Dalvahni demon hunters. Our prior heroes, Brand and Ansgar, spoke of Conall in previous installments, but we didn't see much of his character. So far, all of the Dalvahni warriors have been pretty similar. They are all 10,000 years old and literal to a fault. We don't have much of a backstory on any of them... so they are not the type of character to which you are going to become emotionally connected/invested. That being said, all of these heroes have fit in well into a series that is not all at serious and serves more as slapstick entertainment than deep emotional reading.  I did like that we got a little history on the Dalvahni origins in this book, and even got to meet Kelvahn, creator of this sect of supernaturals. Plus Conall had his own dry sense of humor that snuck up on you once in a while:

You’re being nice to me again,” she said. “Why?”

“I am trying to lure you into complacence with my charm so I can do something nefarious to you."

This installment was not quite as funny as the previous books, but it was still a good story in its own right.  I would have liked to see more of the over-the-top southern colloquialisms that were delivered in earlier books, but they were noticeably absent here. It seemed that our heroine was just (gasp!) less southern than the rest of the town. She did, however, provide an interesting recipe that sounds like something you would find in the South.  I'm not sure if I am game enough to try it.  How about you?

Boiled Can, a recipe from the Great Depression that consisted of caramelized condensed milk, chilled, and served over a Graham cracker and topped with whipped cream.

Demon Hunters