Base Instincts (Demonica)

by Larissa Ione

[Melanie]

Review originally posted at RabidReads.com.

I’m a little late to the party on this book. I’m a huge fan of the Demonica series. I have no idea how I missed this arc, but that’s okay. I was willing to purchase this book because I love Larissa Ione’s writing so much and the Demonica series to be specific.

This story is about Raze, a Seminus demon. For people who are not familiar with the Demonica series, they are a form of incubus. They are sex demons and must have a lot of sex to survive and it must be with a female. There’s just one problem for Raze, he as no interest in females. He is gay. Can you see the problem here? If he doesn’t have sex with a female, he will die.

Raze has been working at UGH, Underworld General Hospital. Seminus demons also have a great ability to heal. Fayle is a succubus who has befriended Raze and helps him with his sex problem. They are able to both get the sexual needs that they both need without the excess attachment and emotion. Raze and Fayle are both seem content with their life on the move and just existing. That is until Raze finally finds a job that he enjoys and wants to stay at UGH.

Slake is a bounty hunter. He has one last job on his contract. He basically sold his soul to a devil and he had to complete all of his jobs or he would lose his soul to the guy. Bringing back Fayle was his last job. He decides to get close to Raze to get to Fayle. You can see where this goes wrong. Slake feels more for Raze than he intends to, which makes this job much more difficult than it should be.

The way that Ione brought about the the happily ever after in this story was truly unique. I had no idea how she was going to pull it off. I thought it worked really well. It was nice to see Raze, a gay sex demon who thought he would never be happy, finally get his happily ever after was really a fun twist.

This was a fun story, as all of the Demonica stories are. This is the first M/M story in the Demonica story, but not the first one I’ve read by Ione. I’ve reviewed one by her under her other pen name Sydney Croft, which I really enjoyed too. You would think with one of the main characters of this book being a sex demon, this book would be heavy with sex. Yes, there is sex, but there isn’t tons of it. I thought there was about what you would expect in a PNR novella.

We do get to see several characters for fans of the Demonica series. Wraith, Eidolon, Gem and Revenant all make appearances. If you haven’t read the series, do worry, you can read this as a stand alone. I would recommend that you pick up the whole series though. It is one of my favorites. With the Seminus demons and the spinoff Lords of Deliverance series which follows the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, it is a very fun paranormal romance series.