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When she’s called to the Murphy’s
Corner Inn & Tavern by her distant relative Perry, McKenna
Murphy isn’t sure what to expect. As the local witch and
go-to gal for anything paranormal in nature, she’s prepared
to investigate the unusual events happening at the inn.
She’s not prepared for the conflicted feelings she has when
she meets Aidan Campbell again.
Skeptical about the paranormal and
determined to protect the business he’s worked so hard for,
Aidan Campbell is not pleased to have McKenna and her team
in his inn. He’s irritated to find his high school crush on
her has never entirely gone away, and he doesn’t believe in
the supernatural. He’s even more upset when McKenna claims
to have found something sinister. Can McKenna convince
Aidan that there’s something dangerous in his building
before it’s too late?
Demon Inn features a topic I find rather
interesting—paranormal investigations. Despite McKenna’s
abilities as a witch, she and her team also use cameras and
other investigative tools to gather their information.
Reading about their sweep of the inn made me feel like I was
behind the scenes in a ghost hunt, which was pretty cool.
As for the characters themselves, they were not as well
developed, as I would have liked due to the length of the
book and the number of characters. McKenna seemed a bit
wishy-washy, alternately confident and woe-is-me regarding
her abilities and the way the townspeople have always
treated her. Aidan was strong, handsome, and driven to
succeed in business, which at times made him unduly
stubborn. Other characters, team members and friends of
McKenna’s who are called in to rid the inn of the dark
presence, are mainly given one main personality trait, not a
bad thing in a story of this length. One particular
secondary character seemed to be prime sequel material.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t fully immerse myself in the
storyline and conflict in Demon Inn, no matter
how much I wanted to. Too much time was spent dwelling on
things that had happened a long time ago but didn’t have
much relevance to the current conflict. There were also
parts where I felt distanced from the characters and unable
to share in their emotions. However, as a debut novel,
Demon Inn shows promise. I’ll be waiting to see
what Davida McLea comes up with next. |
