Succubus in the City – Nina Harper
Hachette Livre Piatkus, 2009
392 pages
RRP: AU$19.99
ISBN: 978-0-7499-2922-0

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

Succubus in the City is an interesting take on the paranormal romance genre. As the title indicates, it’s a play on Sex and the City, but our four gal-pals are demons in the service of Herself, Satan. Lily, the protagonist, is a succubus whose job is to deliver men’s souls to the devil by having sex with them. In return, she has the perfect life: lots of money, great flat, and a fabulous face and figure that she won’t lose, no matter how many servings of dessert she indulges in. In this story though, she’s starting to feel lonely and wants more than the one night she has with the men she picks up before they turn into a pile of dust on the sheets.

From reading the blurb of this book, I thought it was going to be an enjoyable read: a mixture of chick lit and paranormal romance. On some levels the book delivered. It was an easy read; the narrative wasn’t demanding in any way and there was a lot of indulgent description – great sex, designer shoes, interior design, delectable food, exotic luxurious locales and sexy guys. The chemistry between Nathan and Lily works to pull the narrative together, and also Lily’s holiday romance adds some spice.

What doesn’t quite work are the characters’ attitudes towards sex and relationships. Lily actively hunts for “bad men” who don’t care about their partner’s pleasure to deliver up to Satan but then yearns for fulfilling sex. Surely in three thousand years, she has had time to have relationships (or even one-night-stands) for her own pleasure? It seems that all her friends have done so. Then when she has all that, it’s still not enough for her. The ideas about Hell are contradictory too – demons are supposed to find sin fantastic, but then the characters don’t seem to enjoy it nearly as much as they say they do.

The ending of the novel was especially disappointing. It read like the author had reached her word limit and needed to finish as quickly as possibly, while leaving a number of story leads for the sequel. There wasn’t enough resolution of any of the conflicts raised to provide a satisfying ending for this book as a stand-alone. There are, however, two sequels, Succubus Takes Manhattan and Succubus on the Town coming out this year, so for those who enjoy a bit of paranormal spice in their romance, the three together may provide a more complete story.