*I received a free copy of this book, with thanks to the author and Angry Robot. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*
Blurb: The Devil knows your name, David Aristarkhov.
As a teen, David Aristarkhov was a psychic prodigy, operating under the shadow of his oppressive occultist father. Now, years after his father's death and rapidly approaching his thirtieth birthday, he is content with the high-powered life he's curated as a Boston attorney, moonlighting as a powerful medium for his secret society.
But with power comes a price, and the Devil has come to collect on an ancestral deal. David's days are numbered, and death looms at his door.
Reluctantly, he reaches out to the only person he's ever trusted, his ex-boyfriend and secret Society rival Rhys, for help. However, the only way to get to Rhys is through his wife, Moira. Thrust into each other's care, emotions once buried deep resurface, and the trio race to figure out their feelings for one another before the Devil steals David away for good…
The first book in a spellbinding and vibrant new series from The Sunday Times bestselling author of A Dowry of Blood.
Evocation is partly a psychic vs. demon fantasy-mystery, but mostly it is a polyamory 'vee' romance story, with David and Moira as the 'metamours' and Rhys as the 'hinge' that holds them together.
Which is slightly ironic as it is the David/Moira relationship that is most engaging here. Their enemies to loving friends journey feels like the most natural and healthy developing bond in the book, while Moira and Rhys feel like complicated couple goals, and Rhys and David are far too unhealthily co-dependent to be in a relationship with each other despite the feels.
The worldbuilding is interesting, taking a detailed and scientific approach to spiritualist practices such as tarot, tea leaves, palmistry and astrology, but also introducing spirit-calling, compulsion/charm magic and summoning of demons as more of a fantasy element. But all of this forms the background to the human tale of familial/child abuse, addiction, ambition and supportive, accepting love. This isn't a story about saving the world - it's about trying to save one troubled, difficult man (I do like David!). And how to balance work, family, friends, love and duty along the way, which is very relatable.
Expect a lot of angst, self-doubt and emotional struggle, with an incidental demon possession problem on the side (which felt analogous to either addiction or a wasting disease/chronic degenerating illness in the way it is portrayed).
There is a plot hook at the end to avoid any neat resolution to the story and lead the reader towards the next book in the series, which I hope will contain more of the occult mystery and magical worldbuilding, now that the characters have been introduced and developed into something of a working unit!
David had been put in his place by spirits before. He had been scratched up by poltergeists, dragged around the room by demons, tortured with nightmares by the dead who refused to let him rest until they could. It took a lot more to scare him. But now he was battling back a terror so big he felt seven years old again, frozen by the bedside of a mother dying terribly and slow.
David gasped, ripping his hands out of Miriam's. He felt like he had been doused in freezing water, and he shivered uncontrollably as cold passed through him in waves. His vision went indigo at the corners, tightening into a claustrophobic tunnel, but then he was out of it again, taking in so much light and color that his eyes hurt.
Something spoke to him, so close that he knew it had to be coming from inside his own head.
SON OF ANATOLY
- S.T. Gibson, Evocation
About the author
Saint is a literary agent, author, and village wise woman in training. A graduate of the creative writing program at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and the theological studies program at Princeton Seminary, she currently lives in Boston with her partner, spoiled Persian cat, and vintage blazer collection. She is represented by Tara Gilbert of the Jennifer De Chiara literary agency.
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