Devil's Kiss by Sarwat Chadda

Book Jacket

As the youngest and only female member of the Knights Templar, Bilqis SanGreal grew up knowing she wasn't normal.  Instead of hanging out at the mall or going on dates, she spends her time training as a warrior in her order's ancient battle against the Unholy.

Billi's cloistered life is blasted apart when her childhood friend, Kay, returns from Jerusalem, gorgeous and with a dangeous chip on his shoulder.  He's ready to slide back into Billi's life, but she's met someone new: amber-eyed Mike, who seems to understand her like no one else and effortlessly stakes a claim on her heart.

But the Templars are called to battle before Billi can enjoy the thrilling new twist to her life.  One of the order's ancient enemies has resurfaced, searching for a treasure that the Templars have guarded for almost a thousand years--King Solomon's cursed mirror, a source of unimaginable power.  To save the lives of millions, Billi will have to put her heart aside and made sacrifices greater than she could have imagined.

Review

Devil's Kiss (though inaccurately named...get your characters straight, title!) has so much potential.  The Knights Templar are a mysterious organization that I have little to no knowledge of.  Making them a modern day rag tag group of men, plus Billi, sworn to fight against things that go bump in the night is an awesome idea.  If you like the supernatural but want something a little different, this is definitely a book to check out.

But.  Oh, book, you just never lived up to your potential!  The relationships between Billi and her father and between Billi and Kay were nicely strained and realistic for the first 3/4 of the novel.  But around the climax, everything sped up into "....c'mon, really!?" land.  Epic love sprang from tiny seeds, secrets were revealed, and emotions were suddenly twenty times stronger than ever before.

One nice thing I should point out:  this is so not a love triangle book.  The book jacket doesn't do the plot justice, but I promise there is very little angst.  Maybe a page, and then it turns awesome. 

I loved the mythology.  But the novel as a whole never sat well with me.  Still, it was engrossing enough that I read it in two days, so obviously it was not all bad!  I keep flipping between compliments and critiques, so your best course of action is to read it yourself and form  your own opinion.

Three out of five hungry dead.

Release Date:  September 2009
Reading Level:  Grade 9+
Where In Dunlap Public Library's Collection:  YPL CHA


Don't believe me?  Check out these reviews of Devil's Kiss:

A Myriad of Books
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