Wow, what a ride. Ups, downs, and loops that will leave readers feeling…bewildered? There is so much to love about Johnny Compton’s Devils Kill Devils, but it certainly wasn’t the smoothest experience from beginning to end.

I loved the premise of this book and felt hooked within the first couple chapters, but religious, occult doomsday themes mixed with changing perspectives quickly had me enjoying the storyline less. Not that I don’t love multiple POV novels, but Compton’s plot gets complicated enough without swapping between voices. Perhaps the saving grace, what got me through to the end of the story, was the unique take on vampires. I’ll always be a sucker for a vampire content, whether it be old school Transylvanian or a more modern adaptation. I hadn’t read anything like Compton’s version of them, so the story had that going for it!

Overall, there is a lot to enjoy about this bloody, violent, unsettling book. But it wasn’t what it could have been and I didn’t devour it like I hoped I would. I’d say it’s definitely worth a try this upcoming spooky season! It won’t be everyone’s cup of gory tea, but many fans of horror will still dig it.

As always, a big thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher, Tor Nightfire, for the opportunity to read the ARC of this story.

Devils Kill Devils, by Johnny Compton, was published on September 24, 2024.

I made it about 50 pages in and DNF'd. When I start skimming by the fourth chapter because everything feels like a drag, it's time to set it down. There didn't seem to be a happy medium in what I read. Showing was too showy. Telling told me far too much. Too many characters were tossed at me when I barely knew the main protagonist. Jumping around in the timeline was jarring and broke pacing. The glimpse behind the scenes of why Frank was killed ruined the tension of his death and why Sarita's guardian angel killed him.

I had a hard time with this one. Upon reading the summary, I was very interested. Unfortunately, I don't feel that the plot of the book matches up with it very well. I was very interested in this book at the beginning, but as the chapters went on and more characters were introduced, things went sideways. For some readers, this may be a great read, but I prefer a more straightforward plot with less mythological aspects.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This is the kind of horror I love to read. It takes the mythology of vampires and severely twists it on its head so much that it takes a bit to even know that these “devils” are a vampire variation. Compton masterfully crafts this story in a way that keeps you guessing as to what is going on and building up the suspense and intrigue surrounding the devils.

The “normal” that our main character Sarita knows is interrupted by a very upsetting and startling event that I think would be so terrifying to see in a movie and this scene and several others feel very cinematic. The narration for the audiobook added to this ambiance and the feeling of a truly fun read of this book.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Thank you to @tornightfire for the ARC and @macmillan.audio for the ALC! All thoughts are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley, Tor Publishing Group, Macmillan Audio, as well as the author for this audio and ebook ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
#NetGalley #TorPublishingGroup #Macmillanaudio #MacAudio24 #JohnnyCompton #ImaniJadePowers

Title: Devils Kill Devils
Author: Johnny Compton
Format: eBook and Audiobook
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group
Producer: Macmillan Audio
Narrator: Imani Jade Powers
Publication Date: September 24, 2024
Themes: family, paranormal, demons, friendship
Trigger Warnings: murder, gore, violence,

I absolutely adored Johnny Compton’s debut novel, The Spite House. I was hoping this one would be another hit for me. The curse of the sophomore novel is a thing, however. This one wasn’t a favorite of mine. The book is about a young woman named Sarita and her guardian angel, Angelo. Angelo has been mysteriously appearing and saving her from death and disappearing just as suddenly since she was a child. When he attacks and kills her husband on their wedding night, however, everything she thought she knew turns out wrong. Sarita is thrust into a world of evil and she just wants to make it out alive.

Johnny Compton is a great writer and he’s really good with settings. I enjoyed a cinematic view of the setting and characters while I both read and listened to this novel. I enjoyed the narrator’s performance more than my own. I admit I had an easier time with the audiobook. The first third of the book, in which we’re introduced to Angelo and his mission to keep Sarita safe, is great! I loved hearing about Angelo’s daring rescues and meeting Sarita and her brother. However, somewhere near the middle of the book, the plot comes to a screeching halt and begins to plod along using a meandering narrative. It got boring very suddenly and didn’t pick back up for me. I feel bad but I lost the hook and couldn’t find it again. I’m still a huge fan of the author and will continue to read what he writes. This one just didn’t make it for me.

Devils Kill Devils by Johnny Compton was received directly from the publisher and I chose to review it. I had ever knowingly read this author before and at the beginning of this book I was impressed. Then it started dragging down and I found myself re-reading portions thinking I had missed something, but NO, it was just a slow read. Now I am aware some people like the "slow burn" approach but Jay likes a book that grabs my attention and keeps it, no skimming, no re-reading, just non stop action. I do appreciate a new take on a known trope.

3 Stars

Dnfing this book at page 100.
• Repetitive with Sarita getting drunk & sleeping around (girl needs more hobbies)
• The Angel is boring for being one that kills people
• Sarita is boring
• Book is slow & boring
Book feels so monotone

A woman must confront a figure she sees as her guardian angel after he kills her husband.

This was started out so intense it was a little off putting. I hadn’t even really gotten to know any characters and boom trauma scene. I think maybe the second chapter would’ve been a more interesting hook - with the childhood scene where we first meet this mysterious figure. The writing style overall also wasn’t for me as much.

I loved Devils Kill Devils. I went in cold and had assumed this would be a religious horror novel. It was, to an extent. The religion is an insane cult, the members following an ancient prophecy created by their cult leader.

Serita, the main character, I has been followed and protected by her guardian angel, Angelo. But Angelo is no angel. He murders Serita’s husband on their wedding night. Why? It all circles back to the prophecy.

I don’t want to give too much away, but this has amazing characters. I can’t say I liked Serita all that much but she was such a good protagonist. And Harrah, her mother in law, was a great antagonist. I actually found myself more empathetic to Harrah than Serita. The loss of a child can turn a mother into a monster.

Read this if you’re a fan of cult horror, folk horror, vampires, Gods and demons.

Devils Kill Devils had me intrigued from the very beginning. What I thought was angles and demons then had me guessing it was demons vs demons, up to revealing what our "Devils" really were. Which in my opinion was a very unique approach to a wildly used type of devil/monster. Even though there was some fall off towards the end.

My one major complaint--if you want to call it that--of this story, was that we start off with some solid foundation to an unraveling mystery plot, which then just starts to impact the story and unravel all together. At one point I felt that there was just so much lore dumping--which I am a lore junky--that I felt I was drowning in backstory or world building that I completely forgot about the main plot point of the story. Why did Angelo kill the person that Sarita loved?

Our devils go from mysterious guardian angels, to demons, to vampires, to eldritch gods. And unfortunately I felt overwhelmed, despite the very unique and creative approach to how our devils look and act.

The pay off with Angelo and Sarita is very lack luster, along with our main antagonists getting the same treatment as the Night King from Game of Thrones. All accumulating to a very rapid and unfulfilling conclusion.

All that being said, I do thank the author and Tor Publishing for the opportunity to read this early on NetGalley for an honest review.

Devils Kill Devils by Johnny Compton was a love letter to vampire lore. Our main character Sarita becomes engrossed in eldritch terror after a loved one is murdered at the hands of someone she trusted. This vampire tale reads like a Guillermo Del Toro movie, which is to say I did enjoy it for all its horrors.

I’m sad to say I didn’t enjoy this as much as Spite House, but I loved the homages to a wide array of vampire history. The most frustrating aspect of this story is the main plot driver is spurred by a misconception. This story fell flat to me, but I loved the violence and the mythos, so I’ll give it three stars. It really didn’t feel as much of a southern gothic as I would have expected it to considering it’s in the main blurb.

Johnny Compton has created a world blending new and old folklore, religious overtones, and a lot of blood. Sarita, the protagonist, has been protected all her life by a guardian angel, but has always felt nervous about that. Things go far south on her wedding day, and never turn back.

There are devils, and then there are devils. A unique take on vampirism and hidden societies fighting for control beyond the knowledge of the rest of the world.

For me, there is a break between the beginning, set firmly in our world, with the exception of the guardian angel, and the rest of the story, where Sarita, her brother David, her friends and family find themselves enmeshed in an ancient war, and a prophecy. Due in part to the above-mentioned world-building, there are long expository sections often giving more information than necessary to move the plot along. This doesn't spoil the story, but it slows it considerably.

An entertaining dip into a new mythology that offers a solid conclusion, but still hints there might be more to the story.

Recommended.

2.5 ⭐️

I liked the beginning of this novel. Fast paced, short to medium sized chapters, and an intriguing storyline. It started to lose me midway through, as some of the POVs felt incessantly long. In the end, I was confused on who the main "bad guy" actually was.

Now let's get down to it. The description of the vampires were exquisite. This was a different take on our favorite non-living night walkers, and I could tell Compton put a lot of time and love into them. They were my favorite parts to read.

Let's not also forget the cult vibes. I absolutely ADORED how the vamps took inspiration from us to build their religion. Perfection.

Overall, this book is good. As mentioned in the spoiler part of my review, there's one portion of the story I thoroughly enjoyed. That aside, at times it felt it was a little all over the place.

Either way, I recommend this to whoever wants a fresh look at vampires, and is into a horror with a cult undertone. Just because it wasn't fully for me doesn't mean it won't be someone else's favorite read of the year.

A woman who has a guardian angel who has saved her life multiple times begins to question things when he kills her husband on their wedding night... and she spirals into a world of vampires, cults, and angels. Sarita has been saved from death multiple times in her life by her guardian angel, a man called Angelo... yet she never knows where he comes from and why he saves her. On her wedding night he kills her new husband without any explanation and she begins to question just why he would do that and why for her. Yet her husband's own family has dark secrets and the more Sarita pries into it the more she is beginning to realize that she is the centerpiece to a much darker story and that a darker entity wants her hand in marriage. This book had a promising beginning but fell apart the further I read it. The story jumped to too many POVS and the story just got kind of boring. I really tried to get through it but it was a struggle most of the time. The story had gothic elements and for a story with cults and vampires, I thought it would be perfect for me, yet I just kept getting bored and wanting to dnf the book. Sadly this was a miss for me but if you like vampire stories with cults maybe give it a go, maybe it'll be a better time for you than it was for me.

Release Date: September 24,2024

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group | Tor Nightfire for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

This book started out strong but quickly took a nose dive about 1/4 through. The plot seemed good in theory but I think it was overcomplicated. It took everything in me to trudge through the rest of this book.

Devils Kill Devils started strong, immediately grabbing my attention. Unfortunately it did not keep it's momentum. As the book starts to explain the lore of it's world it gets bogged down. Compton is a decent writer, and I will definitely go back and read his debut novel, but this one was a miss for me. Thank you to NetGalley for an advance reading copy.

So at the beginning of the story, I liked how he set up with this mysterious being coming in on her wedding night and took out her husband. Then we see when she starts seeing this being after that it gets hazy. It just didn’t hold my interest anymore.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for providing me with a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

I haven't read Spite House yet, but I'll definitely be picking it up after this book! Compton is a masterful storyteller, and I found the gothic horror environment he cultivated within the book to be very engaging. Kept me up reading!

Terror. Dread. Angels. Demons. Vampires. This book was a struggle for me. Almost DNF. I found myself bored and doing my best to push through, realizing I was just reading words but not retaining the story’s content. Having to go back to re-read in hopes for info to sink in the second time around. At just 288 pages, it should not have taken me as long as it did to complete it cover to cover, which created a backlog in my reading and reviewing deadlines. Being a circle reader is what kept me awake and alert to keep trying again with this one. A lone woman facing the hordes of hell and needing a devil on her side in a race to save the world… This book started out fast - hit the ground running, but a couple chapters later, the high speed graphic violence remained consistent and overly descriptive, I started to feel details were repetitive and over explained. The books description gave appeal, targeting fans of author Silvia Moreno-Garcia which made me excited to read this. In Moreno-Garcia’s writing, thought provoking, she gives just enough to keep the reader in suspense and wanting more. Her varied writing allows opportunity for jump scares as well “daylight” (moments of safety), to subtle horrific teases causing the reader to look over their shoulder or to listen for approaching footsteps that aren’t there.
I felt the story style of Devils Kill Devils… force fed me steady, repetitious, excessive description, and relentless high speed violence… almost like watching a fight movie in close-up with high speed CGI the entire time. After a while all I could do was be bored. The lack of variety in the storyline was brain-numbing which completely blurred perspective and focal point for my tired eyes. (I had to read it twice to give it a fair shot and it just didn’t do it for me either time.) This was a total miss for me - resembling nothing of the referenced Moreno-Garcia. In my research, I saw that readers had praised Compton’s work prior… but that Devils Kill Devils fell short. If anything, it was ambitious.

Thanking NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I'm so sorry. I really tried to like this. At the very least, I tried to FINISH this, but I couldn't. I read and really liked The Spite House so I was really looking forward to another title from Johnny Compton. Reading the first chapter in the PM preview made me really intrigued about Devils Kill Devils. So believe me when I say I am as much or more disappointed as anyone that this was so...bad. It's not the plot--while fairly convoluted and confusing early on, it was also interesting enough to propel me farther than I thought. Honestly, I think the real killer of Devils Kill Devils, at least for me, is how premature it feels. The balance between showing and telling is heavily weighted on the side of the latter, which wouldn't be so bad if so much of said telling wasn't done in dialogue that universally sounded forced and clunky. Outside of the clunky dialogue, the prose itself felt very amateurish. I saw the acknowledgements. I know there were multiple editors on this book. Were they rushed? Did an old draft accidentally get pushed into the ARC and the book on the shelf will have had another much-needed round of editing?

As I said, I liked The Spite House. Like Devils Kill Devils, there were a lot of POVs, some time jumping, and a sense of omniscience that gives a strong sense of dramatic irony. In The Spite House, those multiple POVs and time jumping felt like carefully calculated breadcrumbs. Here, they often feel disorganized, and sometimes like I missed some crucial information. And while I don't remember feeling like the prose and dialogue in The Spite House was sparkling or poetic, exactly, it was at the very least invisible, allowing me to enjoy the unfolding story. I don't necessarily think an author should forever have new work compared with their old, but in this case, the difference between sheer quality of writing is so stark I can't ignore the discrepancy.

It could be if I had powered through, I would have been rewarded with that convoluted plot weaving together into something really spectacular. I really, really tried to see if that was the case. I just think this needed another, and not light, editing pass before hitting the printing press. I won't be posting this or any other review on my site or Goodreads. I just want you to know my unvarnished thoughts, and that I'm really, really sad this one wasn't good. I'll keep my fingers crossed that Compton's next book will be a return to the caliber of The Spite House.