Where Demons Fear to Tread, by Stephanie Chong

Title: Where Demons Fear to Tread (The Company of Angels, #1)
Author: Stephanie Chong
Publisher: Mira
Release: August 23, 2011
Source: Publisher
Purchase: (RJ Julia | Mira)

Fledging guardian angel and yoga teacher Serena St. Clair dares enter Devil's Paradise nightclub on a mission—to retrieve the wayward Hollywood "It Boy" she's assigned to protect. But she's ambushed by the club's owner, arch demon Julian Ascher. The most powerful demonic entity in Los Angeles, Julian is handsome as sin, a master of temptation who loves nothing more than corrupting pleasure–seeking humans. He won't release the lost soul Serena is supposed to guard. Unless she accepts his dangerous wager... After the disastrous way his human life ended, Julian vowed that no woman would get the better of him again. Yet this sexy–sweet angel, smelling of fresh ocean air and happiness, triggers centuries–old feelings. Now, their high–stakes game of seduction, where angels fall from grace and where demons fear to tread, will lead them either to an eternity in hell, or a deliciously hot heaven.

I was eager to get into Where Demons Fear to Tread because I don’t read a lot of adult books, and I was excited to change it up a bit. And I’m still glad I did read it, because it is different from what I usually read, and it’s always good to leave your comfort zone. But I don’t think this books is all it could have been.

Stephanie Chong had a great world plotted out, and this book had so much potential. I know it’s about the romance more than the angels and demons, but I would have liked to see more action and mythology rather than tension. Toward the end of the book, the pace started to kick up a notch, but most of the book went by pretty slowly.

Stephanie Chong has a great writing style, and I think she handled the dual perspectives very well. Her writing didn’t necessarily stand out to me, but she definitely has a handle on things. I’m interested in what else she can come up with, in the Company of Angels world and outside of it.

Serena and Julian were pretty flat characters, which was a shame because the book was supposed to be about how they change over the course of the novel. And they did change, but I didn’t find myself able to connect to them very much. I feel like I don’t know either of them, even after spending an entire novel with them.

Though it wasn’t what I was hoping it would be, I still did enjoy reading Where Demons Fear to Tread, and would definitely be interested in reading more from Stephanie Chong, in this world and in others.