SINGING WITH THE DEVIL is the first book in Cassandra Rose Clarke’s Black Moon series. Helena Muir is the black sheep of her demon hunting crusader family. She’s never been good at magic like the rest of them, so she eventually opted to distance herself and try to build a normal life. Under her pseudonym Helen of Trondheim, she pursues her love of music and reviews bands. One day her past and present collide when she’s asked to do a favor for her Buffy-wannabe sister. Her sister’s target is Aleksi Haakanen from the death metal band Black Moon. Aleksi is just too suspicious to Helena’s sister. While scoping out the band’s venue, things take a dark turn and Helena winds up kidnapped by the band. Yikes!

From the book’s description, I wasn’t sure what direction this story would go – fun and sexy, or more hero’s quest and action-packed. After reading SINGING WITH THE DEVIL, I’m leaning toward the latter. There’s a ton of sexual tension and chemistry between Helen and Aleksi, but the story is packed with drama and epic battles with demons and miscellaneous evil jerks looking for power boosts. For me, it’s a mix of the DEVILMAN anime and the HELLRAISER films, with romance mixed in. The author has Helen constantly on the fence with whether she should fully trust Aleksi. Her desire for him is confusing yet strong, but she hasn’t known him that long, and they didn’t meet under the best circumstances. It’s only natural that she’d be slow to trust him. Her doubt with Aleksi goes along with her doubt when it comes to herself and her abilities. He’s constantly telling her she has power, but she must trust herself first. In a way, this experience with demons is a trial by fire, and Helen is forced to trust her instincts or die because of her crippling self-doubt. With so many fantastical and hellish creatures and magic, Cassandra Rose Clarke does an amazing job of painting a picture for readers. I normally prefer lighter fare, but I found this tale engrossing and couldn’t put this book down.

SINGING WITH THE DEVIL is a non-stop thrill-fest with a dangerously sexy hero, resilient heroine, and epic battles with hellish baddies. I wouldn’t say that this book ends on a cliffhanger, but it does set up the next book and has the reader eager to see what happens next. It’ll be interesting to see how the author resolves the problematic family dynamic in the next book.

An entertaining and compelling paranormal romance that kept me hooked. I liked the world building and the rooted for the characters.
It's well plotted and the characters are fleshed out.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This is an excellent supernatural adventure with some nice erotica. I love that Clarke has taken a familiar trope--the family that hunts the supernatural--and flips it, giving us a protagonist who is estranged from her family but still believes in the dogma they instilled in her. She stereotypically falls in love with the devil--or a devil (it's complicated)--but again Clarke twists that well-worn plot device, making it the protagonist who must truly and fully break with her family to save the devil and his friends when the hunters come calling. Oh, and his friends? A handful of amazing characters, including a rock goddess cunning woman. There are clearly more stories to be told about these characters--the end tempts us--and I am looking forward to reading them. Fans of Seanan McGuire, Jim Butcher, and the like will love this book.

What a fun and delightful read! I enjoyed reading this book and the author did a great job with world building and allowing you to connect to the characters. The banter, the back and forth is fantastic! If you like competitive characters and a swoony romance, then you need to take a look at this one. Happy reading everyone

Helena, part of the Lineage, a demon hunter society, has hung up the magical towel; she wasn’t any good at it anyway. She’s a fan, as in fanatic, of metal music so when her sister tries to enlist her help on a case involving a possibly demonic metal band she acquiesces. Aleksi is the heavy metal band demon who Helena is investigating. While she is at their concert things go sideways and the demons kidnap her believing she is some other type of magical creature.

But as she spends more time with them and tries to help them against a more evil force, she begins to question which group, Aleksi’s or her Lineage, is the evil one. It turns out Helena has been practicing demon magic without realizing that was what she was doing when she wrote and played her music. Because of this she is able to do the magic needed to help Aleksi save the world. As they run for their own lives, and try to save other lives will real love even be possible? And will they be able to save the world where their love can exist?

This was a wonderful action.adventure, sci-fi, romance novel. All those things were present and they came together quite well. The human/demonic world building was strangely relatable, dangerous yet alluring. And the story line itself was romantic and redemptive.

I look forward to recommending this book to my patrons. I’m rounding up from a 3.5 / 4.0

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Actual Rating = 2.5, rounded up to 3

"How could a demon share her same insights about chaos and magic and music?"

Y'all I'm gonna be honest....I went into this with low expectations so even this relatively low star rating represents my pleasant surprise.

I've never read Clarke's other works but, from a quick scrub of her GR author page, it looks like a contemporary fantasy romance is out of her norm. I always appreciate when authors try new things, so props where they're due. I also think Clarke's other fantasy works (again, don't come at me if I'm incorrect Clarkestans) contributed to Singing with the Devil having a reasonably developed world for its short length and romance-heavy plot. I liked how Clarke tied in her fantasy elements around Catholic mythos but still took enough artistic license for things to feel unique. Now, the magic itself was a bit cheesy - one of the spells is "Grow with power, strength, and light!" - but I can live with that.

So what is it about? Our main girl Helena is an accountant, metal enthusiast, and estranged member of the Lineage, a semi-religious organization that claims to act on behalf of God. Unfortunately for Helena, she was crap at magic and demon hunting so her parents stopped talking to her and her only tie to them is her sister, Juniper. A situation comes up where Juniper thinks a metal band has something to do with a leak between the human and Infernal realms, so she asks her metalhead older sister for help. Helena agrees but shit goes down at the concert and she ends up getting sort of kidnapped by the band, including their demon lead singer. Chaos and romance ensue from there. Helena was pretty likable, even though I couldn't relate to how she acted like a kicked puppy begging for more when it came to her family. I think she could've shown a bit more backbone throughout the story, but her character was timid and that's okay - some people are.

Uhh, Fangirl, these are all nice comments but your rating is pretty low! Yes well, unfortunately, this book had more than its fair share of weaknesses as well.

There is a sort of "twist" at about 90%, which anyone with eyes could've seen coming. Singing with the Devil isn't a mystery or a thriller so whatever, but it was sort of weak.

The relationship between Helena and Aleksi has a strong insta-love element, with them basically falling for each other within four days. Now, Clarke does provide sort of an explanation as to why their connection was so fast and strong, but it still felt underdeveloped. It also felt like the author maybe had a touch of a crush on her own character because, despite Aleksi being a literal demon from basically Hell, he doesn't really have any flaws and is always wonderful, loving, and self-sacrificing with Helena.

There was a bit of the Not Like Other Girls trope with Helena, which is a pet peeve of mine. Granted, that is a fully personal preference and might not bother other readers so I didn't take off any star ratings for it. The resolution of the plot was also fairly convenient, but that's pretty normal in fantasy romances, so whatever. It seemed like Clarke was also leaving the door open for a possible sequel, though I don't know if anything has been announced.

There were some grammar and spelling issues as well, but those will likely be fixed before the final release.

Hilariously, the most unbelievable part of this fantasy romance was when Helena logged into an account she hadn't used in 11 years but still remembered her password. Yeah, right.

Good book.well written and could not put it down.wonderful character descriptions. Will be looking out for this as a series.