Thursday, May 19, 2022

Five novels that get demon summoning right

Lana Harper is the New York Times bestselling author of Payback's A Witch and From Bad to Cursed. Writing as Lana Popovic, she is also the author of YA novels Wicked Like a Wildfire, Fierce Like a Firestorm, Blood Countess, and Poison Priestess. Harper studied psychology and literature at Yale University, law at Boston University, and is a graduate of the Emerson College publishing and writing master's program. She was born in Serbia and lived in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania before moving to the United States, where she now lives in Chicago with her family.

At Tor.com Harper tagged five titles that get demon summoning right, including:
Come Closer by Sara Gran

This is one of the most terrifying books on demonic possession I’ve ever read, because it feels so uncannily real; like something that could actually happen to you, or to almost anyone. The main character, Amanda, is a successful architect in a seemingly solid marriage, when she becomes plagued by a demonic entity named Naamah. Naamah initially manifests as repetitive noises that occur only when Amanda is in her loft, followed by sensual, almost hypnotic dreams in which she and the beautiful demon grow increasingly closer; the entity bears an uncanny resemblance to the “imaginary friend” Amanda invented for herself to cope with a difficult childhood. What happens next is a gradual possession that leaves the reader wondering how much of Amanda’s casual new brazenness, deception, violence, and unbridled sexuality is simply a result of her own frustrated desires, rather than the demon’s dark whims—until it spirals into the kind of grotesque and utterly gripping horror show that leaves no doubt as to what’s happening.
Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue