Liquid Silver Books, $4.75, ISBN 1-59578-258-3
Fantasy Romance, 2006
The cover of this book is really lovely. Usually books published by smaller publishers don’t have nice covers due to limited budget and all, but this one is very, very nicely done and looks nicer than some of the books from mainstream publishing houses.
Having said that, Darragha Foster’s Devil King of the Sixth Heaven is the first in the author’s erotic romantic series Teaching Old Gods New Tricks. The title refers to a divine figure in Buddhism but the author’s series centers around gods of the Norse mythology that are currently living in America. I really have no idea how Buddhism and Norse mythology ever can meet since both are vastly different but somehow everything makes sense here, hmm.
Anyway, this is a simple sexual romp of a story, literally and figuratively, between our Professor of Comparative Religions and Scandinavian Studies heroine, Liliah, and our hero who turns out to be Loki, the trickster god of Norse mythology who ended up doing some really bad things that heralded the end of the world a long time ago. There’s nothing else to this story, which is pretty much the book’s greatest strength or weakness depending on what you want from the story.
The sex scenes push the envelope and a little bit more than that in the context of a typical romance story since sometimes more than two people are involved in the party. We are talking about Norse gods, after all. They can be kinky. Loki is that naughty fellow who sired the serpent that will eat the world, the wolf that will eat the moon, and the demon that rules the underworld, after all. I wonder why Liliah never asks Loki about the time when he turned into a female horse to distract a giant’s six-legged horse only to end up giving birth to Odin’s famous horse Slepnir. Speaking of which, won’t it be cool if Loki ends up somehow pregnant with the kids in this story? That will be something to remember, I tell you.
Sorry about going off-tangent but there really is nothing much to say about this straightforward story about Liliah’s enjoyment of Loki’s “Hickory Farms Beef Log”. No, really, that’s what the author uses to describe Loki’s magnificent state of endowment. Or is that “en-ouch-ment” if you’re not a size queen? After several hearty meals of wholesome beef, these two decide that they’re in love and Loki is granted his freedom to love a woman. How sweet. Just keep those male horses away from him, Liliah!
I wish I know more about the Norse gods in Ms Foster’s story, just as I wish there is a little bit more to this story other than a heroine falling into a state of orgasmic earth-shattering poof-exploding orgasms all over the place because she’s being baptized, so to speak, by one of those Norse gods who is unbeatable it comes to emitting huge wafts of pheromone that turn women into frenzy of near-Manead proportions. A little more world and canon building will be nice. As it is, Devil King of the Sixth Heaven is a painless quick read that doesn’t try to be more than yet another erotic paranormal story among many out there.
