Judith‘s review of Sculpting A Demon by Lisa Fox.
Lila Callahan lives a subdued life, devoting all her time and energy to her sculpting. When her best friend coerces her into performing a love spell, the last thing she expects is to wake up the next day with an outrageously sexy demon in her bed.
Arien is a fallen angel with a penchant for mischievousness and a talent for all the most decadent delights. he promptly turns Lila’s quiet, controlled world upside down and sparks fly between them, both inside her bedroom and out. Arien shows her sides of herself she never knew existed, and Lila finds the love and passion she has always secretly longed for. But when Arien learns the true nature of her spell, he knows there is trouble ahead. The denizens of hell are only supposed to answer calls for greedy, lustful, malicious desires–and her little love spell was none of those things. There is a way for Lila to have him for her own, but only if she’s willing to take a risk.
I was particularly interested in this novella since I have always had an active interest in all the arts and as a musician in my past life. It was an interesting tale about someone who has never found a way to express her inner self, her understanding of the world, her hopes for the future, and the urges of her Muse except through sculpting. It would appear that this character was very good at her craft and was on the verge of becoming a person of note in the sculpting world. So this little episode in her life points more to the lacks in her personal life rather than her deficiencies professionally.
The author has written an amusing tale about a demon who is bored with hell. Since there are many renditions of hell in fiction and many creative and imaginative stories about the place, I found this to be one that was inventive and interesting. To find an upper level demon who can speak of his own “fallenness” and of his experience of “falling from grace” is in itself fun to read. To have him respond to Lila’s love spell was a bit of a stretch for me initially until I realized that the entire story is really about redemption and reclaiming one’s self. Certainly that is what is going on with Lila. With Arien’s assistance she has begun a journey of re-discovery about the depths of her own emotional self, about experiencing life to a greater extent than has ever been true before, and to find out that those experiences bring new life to her art. There are oblique references to a biblical story in Genesis–mortals consorting with angels–that give some back story to this tale. In fact, there are aspects of this story that seemed to give it more depth than what might have been seen at first.
I have not read any of Ms Fox’s work previously so was interested in the crafting of this novella. She seems to have put the various component parts together well, keeping the characters strong throughout the story, moving the plot, its conflicts and resolutions along so that the final scenes are quite surprising. The character of her best friend is really very funny–the kind of person that every quiet and unassuming person really needs in her life. Were it not for that friend, Lila would have never discovered the possibilities a deep and abiding love could bring into her life. And it would also appear that hell’s “bad boy” discovered something about himself as well, proving that it is possible to teach a bad boy new tricks, even after millenia.
So I recommend this novella as an entertaining read, one that will hold a reader’s interest, and combine the artistic with the fantastic. I give this work a rating of 3.75 out of 5.
This book is available from Ellora’s Cave. You can buy it here in e-format.
You can read more from Judith at Dr. J’s Book Place.
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