Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: paranormal romance
Series: Demon Rock, #3
Length: 180 pages
Publisher: Carina Press
Date Released: August 4, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

What happens when two very different satyr rock stars find their Muse…and discover it’s the same woman?

Musician Mia Dillon’s having the week of her life. Sharing the stage with the world’s biggest acts at a hedonistic festival is a rush, but she discovers new thrills as she frees her sensual side. A brief flirtation with sexy drummer Wolfgang quickly escalates as they lose themselves in wild music and the desert heat.

And then there’s Ethan. Silent, almost samurai-like, he’s the best guitarist she’s ever seen. He’s broken out of his quiet reserve just for her.

But Wolfgang and Ethan share two secrets. One: they’re demons. Two: they’re starving. The ancient rules of demons have shifted and if they don’t feed soon, the lights will go out for good. Mia’s energy has marked her as The One…for both of them.

Mia’s never had two men—let alone two demons—at once. Nobody’s heard of demons sharing a Muse, either. But the three of them make a sexual melody unlike anything else. Mia’s never felt so alive, but with the enemy growing closer by the minute, it will take everything Wolfgang and Ethan have to keep her that way.

My Review:

Read this one with a fan. Or be sure to have the air conditioning on, and yes, I know its supposed to be Fall.

For that matter, read this whole series with a fan for coolth, starting with Heavy Metal Heart (reviewed here), and then straight into Slam Dance with the Devil (review).

Every time I read a book in this series, I can’t help but hear Bob Seger singing “Rock and Roll Never Forgets” both for the beat and for the sentiment, even though, in the case of these rock and roll demons, its they who can’t forget the music.

They try to make sure that the music forgets them, because they’ve been playing forever–since music really was rock; rocks beating against sticks, skins, or even just other rocks.

These musicians are the demons that were created when humankind sang and danced around the first fires, when both the demons and humankind and even the world itself were young.

These rockers are the best in the world, because they’ve had thousands of years of practice. But the party might finally be over.

In this alternate (or perhaps just under the radar) rock opera, there’s a legend of the Muse. The one woman for each demon who can become part of their world, and who can absorb the energy of the crowd just like they can. Or even better.

But there’s a catch (there’s always a catch). Once a demon finds his muse, he can only feed off the energy of the crowd if she’s on stage with him. Once he finds her, he’ll die without her.

Muses were only legends, even myths among these mythological beings, until one demon found his muse. Then another. Their world is changing, and their enemies are trying to prevent that change.

Into the middle of the legend, one woman with a heart of rock and roll comes to a music festival to make her own legend–and steps into the middle of a myth that is older than time. Mia Dillon arrives at the Ocatillo festival intending to share the stage with rock and roll’s finest.

And it so happens. But Mia also finds herself pulled into the arms of two legends; Wolfgang and Ethan. Wolfgang is the drummer for one of the biggest bands in the world, and Ethan is a wanderer who never stays with any group, either of musicians or people. Until Mia binds the three of them together.

But once they’ve found each other, can they work out what they are, together? And can Ethan finally come in from the wandering cold?

Escape Rating B-: In my review of Slam Dance with the Devil, I said that the Demon Rock series was every bit as hot as Olivia Cunning’s Sinners on Tour series, but without the threesomes. I should have said something about just waiting for the threesomes, because here Menage with the Muse delivers an intense one.

The story in this installment of the Demon Rock series is primarily about Wolfgang, Ethan and Mia finding a way that they fit together. There isn’t anything in the muse legend about one woman being the muse for two demons simultaneously. Both Wolfgang and Ethan spend the first part of the book thinking that she must be the other one’s muse, because things don’t quite fit right (and I don’t mean that in the “tab A into slot B” sense, either). They can’t figure out how the relationship works, how one muse can feed two demons..

I’m not saying they fight over her, or that she doesn’t have a choice. It’s ALL Mia’s choice. The two guys keep trying to get out of each other’s way, and it’s up to Mia to knock their heads together and take them both on. What makes it more difficult is that Ethan has always been a wanderer. Not just that he travels, but that he can’t stand to be with people. If there was ever an extremely introverted rock and roller, it’s Ethan.

His adjustment, not so much to being a member of a ménage but of having to reintegrate back into society is almost as difficult as Mia’s adjustment to becoming part of the demon world.

Although Mia has one battle with the evil Philosophers and their minions (mostly the minions) the three of them put the forces of joyless order into flight pretty fast.

Read this one to see a really kick-ass rocker take charge of her life and her men, with lots of hot sex and a “you are there” feeling of a rock festival in a ghost town. And remember what I said about the fan!

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genre: Paranormal romance
Series: Demon Rock, #1
Length: 132 pages
Publisher: Carina Press
Date Released: September 30, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Rock Star. Front man. Demon. A descendant of satyrs and the lead singer in a band that feeds on the energy of its audience, Trevor Sand is growing weary of the constant need to perform. He needs the legend of the Muse—a woman destined to be a demon’s eternal companion and only source of sustenance—to be true.

Misty Grant has never been bold, but when Trevor singles her out among hundreds at a concert, she takes him up on his explicit offer. During an erotic night in his hotel room, she learns that his touch is as electric as his lyrics. But when Trevor’s demon is aroused, her desire turns to horror and she runs.

Knowing that he’ll die if he loses her, Trevor must find Misty before his enemies do. But even if he can save her, he knows that regaining the trust of his fated Muse will be his greatest challenge.

My Review:

This is for everyone who has ever been told that rock music is the devil’s music. Or possibly for everyone whose parents ever shouted something like that through the bass beat thumping through the house while they were still teenagers living at home.

Heavy Metal Heart has that spirit of defiance rock and roll defiance blasting through its storyline, and if you love rock, that back beat carries you through the sense that this paranormal romance happens awfully fast.

But then, rock stars burn hot and burn out fast. Unless they really are demons.

Trevor Sand is a rock and roll superstar. This time around. In other times and in other places he’s played every kind of music that there is, from opera to harpsichord to beating skins stretched over wood frames. In this time and place, rock and roll is what brings in enough energy to feed his hunger. Trevor is a demon. He calls himself that. Terminology is slippery. Call him an elemental if it works for you.

Trevor and the boys in his band have walked the Earth for millennia. They were called up by the intense energy of humans first celebrating their ability to survive and conquer the world around them. As long as humans lose themselves in revelry, Trevor and his kind are immortal.

There’s one hitch. Actually two. Rationality hems in the natural order of things. It is natural for humans to let loose now and again. Teenagers are meant to rebel; Friday nights are meant for going out and partying. But there is a group set against Trevor and his fellow demons, the Philosophers. The Philosophers are the gloom and doom party. Complete with real doom.

Then there’s the girl of Trevor’s dreams. Every great artist has a muse. Make that muse with a capital M. Just as Shakespeare wrote poems to his ‘dark lady’, Trevor has been been penning songs to his woman with ‘green eyes’. But for a demon, once he finds his Muse, she becomes the only way he can feed his hunger for energy. Once he’s found her, if she dies, he dies.

She’ll save him, but she’ll also make him vulnerable. Sounds like love.

Misty Grant has been dreaming of Trevor Sands for years, since the first time she heard his music. For one night, she decides to walk on the wild side by going to his impromptu concert and introducing herself, no matter how far out of her comfort zone she has to step.

She has no idea…

Escape Rating B: This is a story of two counter-poised myths. One is that the need of human beings to celebrate, to create, to make joyful noise and song is so powerful that its very nature became embodied in elemental spirits that feed from the energy humans give off when they “live it up”. The Roman god Bacchus loved riotous, drunken festivals, he even gave his name to them; bacchanalia. What if he was based on a something that lived off the energy created by those revels?

Rock and roll isn’t the first time that music has been seen to be a demon’s playground, either. People initially thought the waltz was quite shocking (read almost any Regency romance to get a flavor for this); never mind Mozart’s behavior.

The other myth is the one about every great artist having one perfect Muse who inspires him (or her), combining more than a bit with the fated-mate trope for good effect in this instance. An awful lot of girls dream of being picked out of a crowd by a rock star, in this particular bit of wish fulfillment, the rock star has also been dreaming of this one, particular woman. It makes the concept work this time.

Although Trevor is the demon, the story hinges on Misty’s transformation from ordinary human to extraordinary. It’s not just because she has the most awesome one-night-stand with a rock god, but because she was always meant to be more. She just has to keep deciding, over and over, that she wants everything that that “more” means, the bad as well as the good.

If you’d like to try a story that combines the immortal rock and roll of Jeri Smith-Ready’s WVMP series and the hot sex of Olivia Cunning’s Sinners on Tour series, let Heavy Metal Heart have another little piece of your heart.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.