I’m very into paranormal and spiritual topics, so exorcisms and demon hunting was right up my alley, however the execution isn’t what I was expecting. And based on reading other users’ reviews, even with the triggering topics it’s still something I would, in theory, read. If it was written differently.

I’m unfortunately DNF’ing this book. I will let it simmer and give it another go in a month or so.

Thank you to Netgally, the publishers, and Amy Kuivalainen

When I requested this book I was unaware that it was apart of a series, one that requires you to read the previous books for this one to make sense. I am unable to read all the previous books along with this one before the publish date. Therefore, I will rate this a fair 3/5 stars and will adjust the rating and review when I am able to read all the books in the series along with this one.

I liked the concept of this one, but it just felt kind of flat. I wish it was built a little more with the world, the characters needed a little more dimension.

Amy Kuivalainen is an auto-read author for me. Her "Magicians of Venice" trilogy has made me a fan for life, and her one-shot story "Wolf of the Sands" is one of my favorite stand-alone fantasies. If you haven't read anything by the author- read those!

"The Exorcist and the Demon Hunter" is a continuation of the Firebird Fairytales Trilogy. Goodreads marks it as The Firebird Fairytales #5 and it drives me absolutely crazy because I can't figure out what #4 is supposed to be. But that doesn't really matter- in fact, "The Exorcise and the Demon Hunter" can be read as a standalone, although I don't recommend it. This book follows Jael, an exorcist in Melbourne that has direct connections with the archangel Uriel, and has been trained since she was a teenager to exorcise demons. The Demon Hunter refers to Mychal/Michael, an important character from the Firebird trilogy-- which is where having knowledge of the trilogy helps to get a better idea of the setting for this book.

My overall rating for the Firebird trilogy was 4-star. It was not my favorite series because I didn't like the overall pacing of the story, and it was obvious that Mychal would get his own story since so much of his story was left untold at the end of the trilogy. I went into this story excited to get some resolution for Mychal.

The story is divided into two parts, and Mychal does not even become a prominent character until part 2. The story of Jael starts off strong- Jael is exorcising demons and living her life without a religious title because obviously God exists (or else she wouldn't have an archangel for a teacher!), but Jael wants to approach religion her own way. Religion ends up playing a big part of the story- so much that the first few books of the Bible, and some new testament gets a summary retelling to shape this story. Jesus/Yeshua is an active character in both the past and present tense- and the fictionalized version of him in what I would consider to be a fantasy-type story always felt a little 'off.' The story was pulled down by the historical retelling, rather than pushed forward by the present-day story of Mychal and Jael. Anyone who knows the Bible will get a very basic summary of popular stories (like creation, Noah, Moses), while people who don't know the Bible might not understand how all the stories tie together.

All in all, I'm happy for the closure I get for Mychal. There still is a lot of room for the series to grow and there are other characters from the Firebird trilogy that I would be curious to know more about. Maybe that's where the mysterious book #4 disappeared to?

Thank you Netgalley for an advanced e-copy of this book. It's been out since September 2023 and is available to read. Life has been kicking me in the butt, but I'm so glad I'm able to take a few minutes out of the day to read Amy's book- while this series has not been my favorite, she's still one of my favorite authors and I'm determined to go back and read all of the things she has published. Obviously, it makes my review very biased, but I'm not sorry about it :)

#bookreview // The Exorcist and the Demon Hunter (The Firebird Faerietales #5) by Amy Kuivalainen

Star rate: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you netgalley and Amy Kuivalainen for this amazing opportunity.

When I requested this book, all I knew was that there were angels, demon hunters, and an exorcist. That's all I know because that's all I see in the description, and that boggles my mind. It made me anxious about what the story was about. I was itching to read it so badly.

I didn't expect that this book would get me hooked as soon as I started reading it. I thought I was going to be scared or spooked, but I ended up gripping my blanket so tight because of what was happening in the book. I keep picturing every scene in my head, and my mouth just drops every single time. I don't know what's in this book that made it one of my favorite reads of the year.

I grew up surrounded by religious people. I went to an all-girls school run by nuns for 11 years, and I swear it was one hell of an experience. We read the Bible every single day, and we celebrate the holy rosary month every year. And this book literally hit close to home. I thought I was just going to read an adventure between an exorcist and a demon hunter, but no, it's more than that. I get to witness biblical stories that I grew up reading unfold in front of me from the point of view of an angel. It's really an unforgettable experience reading this book. I seriously need more!

Entertaining, fast paced and action packed. A story I thoroughly enjoyed and that kept me reading.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I was lucky enough to get my hands on this novel before its release and it really is, simply put, an incredibly special book. Frankly, I don’t want to give ANYTHING away, so I’m going to keep this pretty short and sweet… ’The Exorcist and the Demon Hunter’ is a spin-off of the ‘Firebird Faerie’ trilogy, which is absolutely recommended reading before you pick up this book. It’s not going to make sense if you haven’t read the core trilogy, so know this! Without giving too much away, this book heavily leans into angels, demons, and Abrahamic mythology—all of the historical and mythological characters featured are brought to life in a refreshing and respectful way, while flipping the script on some narratives that are thousands of years old. If you haven’t read the Firebird trilogy, start there, and definitely make your way to ‘The Exorcist and the Demon Hunter’!

Amy Kuivalainen is a go-to fantasy author for me, and I was excited by the idea that in this book we would finally get to learn Mychael's full story. Having read the Firebird series, I had some definite theories about him, but that just led to more questions. Cleverly, this book was written enough as a standalone that if you haven't read the Firebird series (which is great, and you should read), you don't come to this one feeling lost. If you have read it, you know there are mysteries surrounding the Demon Hunter before you meet him, but you only have suspicions and aren't actually ahead of any new readers.

The first half of the book was a surprise to me (which I don't mean in a bad way) because it focused entirely on Jael, the exorcist. A freelance exorcist with a rather Buffy-like attitude to authority and tradition, Jael isn't connected to any particular church or religion, but just believes demons shouldn't be possessing people. She has the ability to get rid of them and has been trained since she was a teen by the archangel Uriel to do so, and as far as she's concerned, that is that. Melbourne seems to be dealing with a particularly severe demon infestation and Jael is trying to handle that and understand why those demons are so fixated on her. At the same time, she's trying to hang on to shreds of a normal (or semi-normal) social life to balance her out, and it isn't always working.

Surprisingly, we don't meet Mychael until about halfway through the book, when things get even worse in the supernatural world. The book changes up at this point: Jael tells her story from the first person, while Part Two alternates between Jael's first-person and different third-person POVs. Mostly it worked, but I was thrown by it once and awhile, especially at first. It took a little adjusting.

Kuivalainen's other books have all been more Finnish or Russian mythology-related, including the Firebird series with Mychael, so I was intrigued by the idea of her expanding her world-building here to focus on a more Judeo-Christian theology. Jael isn't specifically of any church or belief, but the monotheistic God of Abraham is clearly the way she feels comfortable relating to the divine, and we are talking to priests, rabbis, demons, and archangels here. I don't know if everyone will be comfortable with this approach, but I thought it worked pretty well.

While her Magicians of Venice series is still my favorite, I enjoyed this book. People who have read the Firebird series will definitely want to read it because it happily wraps up a few loose ends that you thought had just been given endings in the last book. No further spoilers than that though!



Thanks to BHC and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review

This was two books in one. I don’t know why the author had wanted to bundle them together under one title, because it’s very misleading for the reader. Basically, I was expecting a UF romance between the titular characters, which made me discard all the possible love interests as I waited for him to appear, but that’s not what this was about at all.

Both stories work fine on their own and there’s a small connection between them to form a passable duology and I’d have been happier knowing it going in. Now, my frustration with the demon hunter not showing up until in the latter story made me treat the whole as less than it could have been.

I wanted to like this more than I did, especially the first half, which was better. But I didn’t connect with the world at all, I didn’t like Jael, and the religious bits came across as zealous. The second story with it’s third person POV chapters created an even larger distance. The best bit happens in the epilogue, and I don’t know if I should be aggravated it’s left there or happy it happened at all. All in all, a frustrating read.

I loved this book! Jael, the exorcist is fantastic. I liked the fact that she was not affiliated with a particular denomination, sect, or faith. All she cared about was kicking demons out of humans with a whole lot of sass and attitude. She didn't care what you believed, all she believed was that demons did not belong and she was going to take care of business. Even when things are not going particularly well, she's got her guardian archangel Uriel to help her out. Although there is levity in this book it is a pretty dark urban fantasy and it is definitely about dark versus light.

I enjoyed Jael's relationships with those in the heavenly realm. The author's personification of angels and the story she created around their relationships I particularly found entertaining. I can imagine some might find the book's Judeo-Christian core something they don't like. But I didn't view it like that. To me, it was a story about an exorcist who transcended religious divides to do the good work of ridding the place of demons. She had the good fortune to have angels, God, and Jesus backing her up, not to mention teaming up with a dashing Italian priest who was the Catholic church's top-dog exorcist who overcomes his disdain of women doing the Lord's work to become friends with Jael. It's also a story of Jael overcoming the disdain of the Jewish rabbi as she helps him and his temple when the demons attack there. Jael's father is a close-minded evangelical and her mother is New Age, it's a hodge podge of everything and Jael is not aligned with any of it except her calling. And that is why I loved this book. Jael only cared about doing what she was trained and supposed to do.

When we finally meet Mychal and understand his origins, the book begins delving into why they are at war against all the demons right now. I found this enlightening because it gives valuable background to the "why" all this is happening. We do change POVs in the second half of the book but I only felt this helped me understand Mychal and the soul of the book. This book is fast-paced but it is dense with great writing. I know I have discovered a new favorite urban fantasy.

I have read most of Amy's books, including the series that precedes this spin-off and I can genuinely say that I was not expecting the direction this book went. This is not a criticism either.

After reading the Firebird Fairytales Trilogy, I knew about Mychal and had a pretty good idea of his identity. However, the introduction and genuine 1st half of the book focusing on Jael and the dark entity in Melbourne was unexpected. One that I was very satisfied with as I wondered how Mychal was going to have a love interest after the end of Rise of the Firebird... IYKYK

Jael was such a pleasant surprise, and seeing her relationship dynamics with her friends, family, and community, along with Uriel was very satisfying.

While the Fairytales had both Russian and Finnish Mythology along with monotheistic religious aspects, this book focused on Judeo-Christian/Abrahamic themes and while I was surprised by it, it genuinely felt kind of cleansing for me in many ways. As a person who has had a complicated relationship with the Christian religion in a modern context, this book truly made a significant impact toward healing some parts of me that felt jaded by it.

I do not want to give spoilers because this book is truly a journey of patience, endurance, love, and faith. I truly was surprised by The Exorcist and the Demon Hunter, and ultimately ended up adoring this book and all of the poignant and important topics regarding belief, grief, and forgiveness.


* A big thank you NetGalley and BHC Press for the ARC!

I've been a big fan of Amy Kuivalainen since I read the magicians of Venice series (which I absolutely adored). The Exorcist and the Demon hunter had a lot of similar qualities (adventure, romance, detailed historical mystery) that I loved or at least didn't mind (mediocre best friend, jerk dad). This book as some seriously interesting and nuanced history that only someone who has studied history for YEARS can bring.

I would have like to see the plot develop over a trilogy instead of a single book. The pacing was off to me. It wasn't formulaic (like all my favorite books are). That is probably attractive to most people, but my life is stressful so I like my predictable plot lines :).


It started out a little slow. There was a lot going on, but it took too long for me to understand why it mattered to the overall plot. When pacing of the book finally picked up and I became invested, Jael was thrust across the world into a new country with almost not continuity with the previous characters. And while that world quickly became interesting, and I eventually understood the need for the move, I found it difficult to reconnect with the characters.

There were also too many potential love interests. I wanted to know who to root for. Almost every male we encounter during the first half one has potential for Jael (who is not a particularly likable character) except for the one man that is in love with her best friend. I wanted to care about the side characters but there were too many and not enough time to become attached.

Im not sure I would read it again, but I might recommend it to a friend.

I have not read any of this author’s works prior to receiving this eARC from NetGalley, so I didn’t really know what to expect when going into it.

I have come to realize that the answer to that is ‘not much’.

I downloaded the document for the book in May. Read about six chapters and was extremely bored. It’s a LONG book (arguably too long in my opinion, but I digress) and it dragged. I had to take a pause with reading it and I honestly forgot about it until 9/10. So it was sitting in my kindle library for around four months, stagnant at 12% read. So I opened it back up right before writing this (on 9/12) and within one page was reminded why I stopped reading it in the first place. I would DNF it entirely for this reason, but I feel an odd sense of moral obligation to finish it due to being given the opportunity from BHC Press to read this as an ARC. So I’m here typing this word soup prior to attempting to finish it before its archive date of 9/14.

Update as of 9/18/23: I couldn’t. I’m around 25% done with it (somewhere in chapter 12). I’m actually genuinely upset that I can’t find it in me to finish it.

The FMC is just so unrelatable that it’s preventing me from actually being able to immerse myself into the story and picture anything. I don’t think the character introductions have been very good so far. The world and plot building seems a touch convoluted but also leaves a lot to be desired. It took a while (read: too long) to figure out the relationship between a couple characters because they were presented so ambiguously I couldn’t discern if they were friends, siblings, or dating at first. In hindsight I have a suspicion that it’s because i was just reading the words and not able to process them because they weren’t pulling me in.

Which is a shame, because the title alone made me want to read it. I’m very into paranormal and spiritual topics, so exorcisms and demon hunting was right up my alley, however the execution isn’t what I was expecting. And based on reading other users’ reviews, even with the triggering topics it’s still something I would, in theory, read. If it was written differently.

I’m unfortunately DNF’ing this book. I will let it simmer and give it another go in a month or so and amend my reviews on goodreads to include my thoughts for my second attempt.

Thank you to BHC Press, NetGalley, and Amy Kuivalainen for allowing me the opportunity to read this ARC.

This read was an absolute ride! After finishing the final book in 'Firebird' seeing Mychals name in the blurb gave me goosebumps.
Kuivalainen gives us an original take on r3ligious mythology, two origin stories and tension that keeps you immersed in this high fantasy world.

If you love--
* EX0RCISTs, ACTION PACKED STORIEs
* D3MONs / ANGELS, w@r TIMES
* AN INTRIGUING AND FRESH TAKE ON MYTHOLOGY
* R3LIGIOUS THEMES
* TENSION 🤌🖤 (with WHO!?)
This will be your jam.

The FMC had an inner monlouge I loved and the writing was intense and intricate. This delivered on all levels!
I absolutely live for a slow burn and twists that leave you tearing with tears in the eyes. 5⭐ read worth every brain cell used to remember/distinguish angelic names 😜💀

Thanks to netgalley for the arc of this. I loved it from start to finish. There was some dark bits that maybe needed a trigger warning, but on the whole it was thoroughly enjoyable. I loved the play on the religious side with the angels and demons, and the wide range of charectors.

Action packed with a strong female lead. Exactly the kind of story I expected from Amy Kuivalainen! I adore her books and this was no exception.

Amy Kuivalainen knows how to write a strong female lead, and this book is no exception. It’s an action packed urban fantasy and can be read as a stand alone. This is the second book I’ve read by her and I will absolutely read more!

Jael Quinlan is a freelance exorcist based in Australia. Uriel is the angelic guardian that watches over and guides her. “The Exorcist and the Demon Hunter” is a book with two distinct stories. The first story follows Jael as she battles to remove a demonic invasion in Melbourne. She is helped by Uriel and, much to her surprise, exorcists from the Catholic Church. The second story follows Jael and Uriel, in addition to Mychal and Gabriel, in an epic battle against the Devil himself to save humanity.

This book is on the longer side. With the two distinct stories, the author could have chosen to make this story two books instead of one. That being said, the plot is well-crafted and it progresses nicely. The story does slow down a little at the start of the second half, but it does not last long. The writing is wonderful – the dialogue was very natural (including humor), bringing life to the characters and their interactions. The story was suspenseful and kept me guessing as to what would happen next. The ending wrapped up the story in a satisfying manner while still leaving the door open to more adventures with Jael and Uriel.

Thanks to NetGalley, Amy Kuivalainen, and BHC Press for providing a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book was hard to get into and to understand and I fought with for a very long time and read it over a long period of time.
It is very heavy on bible and religious elements, which could be somehow guessed from the title, but this really referred a loooot to the Bible which I did not expect.
Also the book is titled 'The exorcist and the demon hunter' and the demon hunter only makes an appearance at, I think, 75% of the book. Again, I was waiting all book long for this character to appear.
The book is also thoroughly confusing. It keeps changing perspectives, especially towards the end, and it takes a while to figure out what is even going on.
I don't know, I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book.
It does feature some romance elements, but barely.
I truly don't know how to describe this book, because I was so confused about what was even happening for the better part of it.
I liked certain aspects of it, but it felt like it was too much to digest at times.

Thank you NetGalley for the eArc copy of this book.

I quite enjoyed this read. It is set in Australia and it can be read as a standalone, which was great, as I have never read this authors books prior to this.

There not enough books set in Australia, that isn't crime or historical fiction. I look forward to reading more.