Demon Trapper Riley Blackthornejust needs a chance to prove herself—and that’s exactly what Lucifer is counting on…

It’s the year 2018, and with human society seriously disrupted by the economic upheavals of the previous decade, Lucifer has increased the number of demons in all major cities. Atlanta is no exception. Fortunately, humans are protected by Demon Trappers, who work to keep homes and streets safe from the things that go bump in the night.

Seventeen-year-old Riley, only daughter of legendary Demon Trapper Paul Blackthorne, has always dreamed of following in her father’s footsteps. When she’s not keeping up with her homework or trying to manage her growing attraction to fellow Trapper apprentice, Simon, Riley’s out saving citizens from Grade One Hellspawn. Business as usual, really, for a demon-trapping teen. When a Grade Five Geo-Fiend crashes Riley’s routine assignment at a library, jeopardizing her life and her chosen livelihood, she realizes that she’s caught in the middle of a battle between Heaven and Hell.

Meet Riley Blackthorne, 17, a Demon Trapper in Atlanta, GA. In her world the demons are running loose and it’s the Trappers work to capture them and send them back to the Church. She is a Demon Trapper’s Apprentice, her dad, the legendary Paul Blackthorne, has been teaching her how do to the job even though they face the prejudice from the other Trappers Masters: after all, she is a girl. And according to most of the Trappers, this is not a job for girls.

The Demons are classified by grades: there are Ones, Twos, Threes, Fours and Fives. The bigger the number, the bigger the problem. We start The Demon Trapper’s Daughter as Riley is trapping a Grade Three in a library. It should be a piece of cake job for her, but it turns out to be a little more difficult than that. The demon ruins the library, making bookshelves fall and books fly. There are people in there recording it, and Riley goes viral: the videos have tons of views in just a matter of hours. But that’s not her only problem: the Trappers Guild calls a meeting to discuss Riley’s future. She knows some of the members will try to vote her out, to revoke her license, and she barely makes out of it with her license.

We also get to meet Beck, Paul’s former Apprentice, a mysterious guy who Riley once had a crush on. Paul and Beck are usually Trapper buddies, but things end up terrible wrong when they’re chasing a demon that gets help from another one and Paul doesn’t survive. Now Beck is everything that Riley has—but she hates the fact that she dependents on someone else, especially Beck. Their relationship is complicated, you can see right away that they both like each other but are too bullheaded to admit it.

I loved this book, but I needed to digest it for a while after I finished reading it. It was a refreshing paranormal reading to me, Oliver created a convincing background to the demons and it makes you wonder all the time why they’re after Riley. Because she lost her father I could see a little bit of Strange Angel’s Dru on her, but that’s all, they’re completely different characters. And Beck is… Well, he is Beck, a tough guy trying to make things right. I’m definitely looking forward to reading more of this series, and I’m never gonna look at a sippy cup with the same eyes again. If you like demons and action you should give it a try too.

Author: Jana Oliver
Country: United States
Language: English
Genre(s): Young Adult, Paranormal
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publication date: February 1, 2011
Pages: 368
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My favorite quotes on this book are bellow.

Adults always acted like they could fix everything.
But they can’t. And they know it.

“I’ll be out soon. Go on. It’ll be okay.”
It’ll be okay.
It sounded like a curse.

“She’s not got a crush on you anymore, Den, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Oh, I know that. Now she just hates me. I don’t know which is worse.”

“Maybe you could get a roommate or something.”
“How many people want to live with someone who stores demons in their kitchen cupboard?”
“Good point.”

“No matter what, I’ve got your back.”
Not if you’re on the other side of the city.

“He acts like he knows everything.”
Carmela chuckled. “Honey, that’s what all guys are like. You should know that by now.”

“Just keepin’ ya safe, Riley girl. Ya’ll thank me one day.”
Not in this lifetime.

Did he just apologize? That had to be a first.

Awesome wasn’t the word she’d have chosen. Hellish. Bloody. Brutal.