Book Review: The Demon’s Grave by E.M. MacCallum

Title: The Demon’s Grave
Author: E.M. MacCallum
Genre: Dark Urban Fantasy
Rating: 4 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by Enchanted Book Promotions in exchange for an honest review.

When strange shadows and messages plague Nora’s daily life she fears for her sanity. To escape questions from her family, Nora joins her friends on a weekend getaway. Despite not liking Aidan Birket, Nora finds his remote, Victorian house charming. Until they discover the marble doorway on the third floor and, against Nora’s better judgment, they open it.

Trespassing into an unfamiliar world called the Demon’s Grave, the group face a charismatic demon and six nightmarish Challenges as punishment. Those that make it to the end can go home, but those that don’t will be his forever. Friendships are tested, secrets revealed and sacrifices will be made.

Nora battles zombies, doppelgängers, eyeless bikers, and the demon—whose interests are more than just a game of cat and mouse. If it’s all in her head, then it should be easy. But, if not, it means the demon knows about her sticky past, and the death of her twin sister.

In The Demon’s Grave, Nora struggles with hearing and seeing things that aren’t really there, and some of it has to do with what happened to her family years ago. She joins her friends on a weekend getaway to a Victorian house. A doorway on the third floor leads Nora and her friends into an unfamiliar world called The Demon’s Grave, where they face a demon and the challenges he presents to them. If they make it to the end, they will get to go home. If they don’t, then they will belong to the demon for all eternity.

The challenges are quite original, and Nora gets to battle a variety of monsters, zombies, demons, and so on.  I liked Nora. For all she went through, she kept being strong and was level-headed. At times, she acted quite mature for her age, and other times, she acted like a regular teenager, and I liked the combination of that. She’s also very flawed, and struggling with the past, which made her all the more interesting.

The story was what grabbed me the most, especially the part where they have to go through the challenges. The writing is fast-paced and the book never slows down. A creepy, spine-tingling experience!