Publisher: Dell
Date published: March 23rd, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-440-24494-3
Paranormal/Urban Fantasy
Mass Market Paperback
Reviewed by Dawnl
Obtained by Publisher
Morgan Kingsley, one of the best exorcists around, has been dealing with being possessed by Lugh, a sexy demon king, who’s on the run from his brother who wants Lugh’s throne. All Morgan wanted was an exorcist job of any kind…what she gets is Shae, the owner of the Seven Deadlies demon club, coming to her for help. Now in addition to dealing with Lugh’s decision to meddle in Morgan’s relationship with Brian, the showdown that has been coming is about to commence. Morgan finds she needs every inch of her power and then some in order to live another day. Can Morgan and all her allies find a way to stop the demon war that is brewing in order to have her own happily ever after?
I really wanted to like this book...really I did. I loved the last four books but something about THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND just felt flat to me. The characters were only two dimensional and I had a really hard time enjoying Morgan this go around. Ms. Black delivers the final story for the Morgan Kingsley series and this time, Morgan finally faces Dougal, Lugh’s brother. The writing is smooth and her storyline, though at times fell flat, was intriguing to a degree. Ms. Black has a wonderful series but in this latest book of the series, it all fell apart at times. The characters just didn’t interest me as much as the last few books. I felt like they were there to window dress the Lugh/Dougal showdown which also was unimpressive when the story finally got around to it.
THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND could have been a bit better with a tighter storyline and a balance between the whole talk-talk-talk that was going on between all the main characters. After awhile I got tired of all the telling and wanted some action. There were some relationship issues between Lugh, Morgan and Brian but even though it was a promising sub-plot in previous books, it was hard to find much mentioned on this. It felt like the author needed to get this book done and to her publisher as soon as she could to finish the contract.
If you are looking for a darker toned urban fantasy then you might enjoy the Morgan Kingsley series. If Ms. Black decides to go back to this world, I really hope the storyline is better fleshed out and the characters more redeeming then the ones here. THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND is a so-so final story in a series that had it’s up and downs to this reader. If you are looking to see how it all ends for Morgan, then you might want to pick this one up for a quick read.
This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.
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