"But lies didn't work on Alan; she (Sin) knew better than to play a player."
Sin, a minor character in previous books of The Demon's Lexicon series, is the narrator of The Demon's Surrender. In The Demon's Lexicon and The Demon's Covenant, I didn't care much about Sin, but after reading The Demon's Surrender, I love Sin. She's brave and strong. She's also an amazing dancer and a natural performer who knows how to charm an audience.
Sin's also an extremely talented eavesdropper. In order to show interactions between characters, such as Nick and Mae and Jamie and Seb, Sin listens in on many private and personal conversations. While Sin is quite observant, she's still an outsider looking in and there's no emotional impact or understanding about what's going on between characters and events that aren't related to her. The Demon's Surrender needed a narrator that was more in the know and more involved with the main characters.
Sin is an integral part of The Goblin Market - one of my favourite parts of The Demon's Lexicon series. In The Demon's Surrender, Mae and Sin are competing for leadership of The Goblin Market and the whole idea is just silly. Sin has been training to be the leader of The Goblin Market her whole entire life and Mae just swoops in and always manages to outshine Sin. It isn't believable. I expected to see Sin's love and pride for The Goblin Market and I wanted her to fight for the leadership position and succeed.
We do get to see a lot of Alan Ryves in The Demon's Surrender and I'm not complaining because he's one of my favourite characters. Alan is a smart and kind nerd, a liar, a charmer and a dangerous schemer. Alan's my role model! I wasn't too keen on the idea of an Alan-and-Sin romance because it seemed that Sin and Alan were being forced together just so that he could have a love interest. However, I really warmed up to Alan and Sin's relationship. After their initial dislike of each other, they realise that they have a lot in common. They are both older siblings who are responsible for their younger siblings and would do anything to protect them. They both know how to act and put on a show and they are both chameleons who adapt to the situations that they are placed in. Their romance is sweet and it makes a lot of sense.
On the other hand, the romance between Nick and Mae feels so wrong. I'm not a fan of Mae in The Demon's Surrender. While it's awesome to see her still having a strong and honest friendship with her rival, Sin, everything is handed to her on a silver platter. Also, Nick is a sociopath and the only person he ever comes close to loving is Alan. He's not the love interest type.
The sibling relationships in this series is all kinds of awesome. The relationship between the Ryves brothers is beautiful and complicated and Sin's desire to protect and care for her younger siblings is admirable. However, we don't see as much of Mae and Jamie's relationship in The Demon's Surrender.
Jamie's progression from the nervous and scared guy who hates conflict to the power-hungry, knife wielding and crazy magician is unrealistic because we don't see the stages of his transition. I also couldn't believe the possibility of a relationship between Jamie and Seb. I'm all for love-hate relationships and mutual dislike to love romances, but once again, I didn't see the progression of Jamie and Seb's relationship. One moment, Seb makes Jamie's life difficult and Jamie hates Seb for it and the next moment Seb realises that he likes Jamie and Jamie gives him a chance at romance. I'm not buying it!
I'm also not a fan of the series resolution. Basically, a deal is made where the magicians are told to stop killing people for power and they will now be getting power from Nick. If they don't stop killing people and being power-hungry, their bodies will be possessed by demons. What happens when Nick decides to change his mind about letting the magicians use his power? What happens if there are no more magician bodies to give the demons because all the killer magicians have already been possessed, have become too scared to go on a killing spree or go into hiding?
The Demon's Surrender is my least favourite book in the series. It's still a solid novel and an enjoyable read, but it doesn't measure up to the amazing first two books in the series. I recommend The Demon's Lexicon series. The characters are unique and the sibling relationships are amazing.
"Love always cost more than you can afford to pay." he (Alan) said. "And it's always worth the price."