A book review for today! I have so many of these to get through over the next few weeks! First one up is Firstborn by Ryan Attard, the first book in the Legacy series.
Thanks to Ky Grabowski at ACE Stellar Publishing for the review copy! 🙂
Firstborn tells the story of Erik Ashendale, a wizard and all-around badass. He spends his time fighting monsters, demons and other such things that go bump in the night. When we first meet him, he has been brought in by the police to fight “lizardmen” who have infested a school. An easy job, except that one of them seems to be magically enhanced and almost too much for him. Luckily, Erik is able to heal quickly. He also carries guns that he can infuse with magic and a magic sword. The next job Erik gets changes things. A young woman is being hunted down by someone or something. It has attacked once, almost killing her. Now Erik needs to prevent them from attacking again. It doesn’t take long for Erik to realize that the girl is a succubus, slowly coming into her powers.
That’s not the only issue that Erik has going on. For starters, he has a demon familiar named Amaymon that takes the form of a cat and issues a constant stream of snarky advice. Who doesn’t love a snarky talking cat? Amaymon is one of the brightest parts of the book, at least for me. He’s really fun. Erik also has to deal with his sister Gil, a warlock who has allied herself with angels. Gil is none too pleased that her brother has promised to protect a succubus. They discover that the person hunting the succubus is the personification of Lust, one of the Seven Deadly Sins. The mastermind behind that? Lilith, the mother of demons and sin.
This was a fun read. Erik is a very self-deprecating anti-hero and, as I said, Amaymon is hilarious. My main complaint with the book is that towards the end, Erik becomes a little bit too powerful. It seemed a little bit too easy. The mythology was interesting, although I would have liked to have just a bit more world-building. Not a huge complaint, that one, but it seems like there could be more detail given regarding warlocks and wizards and demons. Still, it was a good debut that I completely enjoyed. It will be interesting to see what happens next.
Categories: Books I've Read
Life With No Plot 
Have you watched any of the TV show, Lost Girl? It is a pretty adult show but for some reason the sound of this makes me think of it, and it was even before I got to the succubus bit.
I’ve never seen it. I don’t really watch much TV, except for a few shows here and there.