As a succubus, Lily doesn’t have it all easy; her job is to go home with the bad ones. The abusers, the losers, the two-timing scum? They’re all hers, to have and to hold and, finally, to cremate. While there’s good demon friends and fashion to compensate, after 3,000 years she’s ready for a real relationship—and part-time P.I. and amateur archaeologist Nathan Coleman might be the one for it. But when do-gooders begin hunting her and her friends down, things rapidly become nasty.
Succubus in the City has some obvious roots: the title alone directs you to the first, and the frequent lunch bonding scenes feel almost as if they were taken directly from Sex and the City’s screen. But a less obvious forbear quickly reveals itself: Succubus in the City could easily be the extended life of vengeance demon Anya of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. The world therein is portrayed in similar fashion, with demons having their own problems, slipping in and out of the human world with relative ease (and fashion); the modern world is very much a part of this book. In fact, relentlessly so.
The unfortunate paradox is that Succubus in the City struggles so severely to be of the moment it ends up feeling, rather oddly, a bit five minutes ago; and the attempts to warm the characters with the little details of life—ice cream and wall paper preferences, boyfriend worries—only succeed in making the demons seem more soulless. It’s a particularly pity, because what should be a delicious plot riddled with moral ambiguities, personal hazards, and soul-searching shocks comes across rather like a less juicy Gossip Girl.
It doesn’t help that the novel feels clearly padded; situations that should be quickly resolved take time, and situations that should take time begin to feel unending. And frankly, there’s no making a slumber party (at least not a chaste one) sound exciting in any way—a scene which in various ways forever seemed to be repeating itself. For a novel clearly meant to be a guilty pleasure, the only pleasure this reviewer had was finally making it through the book. Succubus in the City may be the story of a woman too hot to handle, but the novel itself is tepid—and an opportunity to be missed.
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If you liked this book, check out:
Sex and the City, Season 6, Part 1
A Kiss of Shadows
Guilty Pleasures