From Goodreads: I gasped . . . or tried to. My mouth opened, but I couldn’t draw breath. . . . His lips, pearly wet, parted and he blew into my mouth. My lungs expanded beneath his weight. When I exhaled he sucked in my breath and his weight turned from cold marble into warm living flesh.

Since accepting a teaching position at remote Fairwick College in upstate New York, Callie McFay has experienced the same disturbingly erotic dream every night: A mist enters her bedroom, then takes the shape of a virile, seductive stranger who proceeds to ravish her in the most toe-curling, wholly satisfying ways possible. Perhaps these dreams are the result of writing her bestselling book, The Sex Lives of Demon Lovers. After all, Callie’s lifelong passion is the intersection of lurid fairy tales and Gothic literature—which is why she finds herself at Fairwick’s renowned folklore department, living in a once-stately Victorian house that, at first sight, seemed to call her name.

But Callie soon realizes that her dreams are alarmingly real. She has a demon lover—an incubus—and he will seduce her, pleasure her, and eventually suck the very life from her. Then Callie makes another startling discovery: He’s not the only mythical creature in Fairwick. As the tenured witches of the college and the resident fairies in the surrounding woods prepare to cast out the incubus, Callie must accomplish something infinitely more difficult—banishing this demon lover from her heart.

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Sometimes I get a little carried away with myself and become so wrapped up in a book cover that I only skim the synopsis, seeing what I want to see, and I miss the bigger picture.  That, my dear readers, is what happened here.  I completely missed that this is not a YA book, not even close, as it’s full of erotica and adult situations.  Now, upon reading the synopsis carefully, one would note that in a heartbeat.  I have no idea why I did not, especially as I try my hardest to refrain from any books with detailed sexual situations.  But, alas, I was apparently blinded and went on to request this book from Netgalley.  So, in reality, it’s all my fault… and since I always finish a novel once I’ve started it, well…

But, all that aside, I think Dark has written a very intriguing tale in which all supernatural creatures exist.  There are witches, vampires, succubae, incubuses, faeries… you name it, and this book has it.  Truth be told, it’s a little overwhelming at times, but I think Dark does a superb job explaining them into the story.  However, I did find this novel a bit long.  There were many situations in the novel that I think could have been cut out all together (like three-fourths of the sexual encounters), or at least shortened a bit because, in the end, they didn’t have much impact on the story at heart.  Upon finishing the novel, I felt that there were a few too many side stories going on within the text, and at one point I remember thinking to myself, “isn’t this supposed to be about an incubus?”  While I understand why many of these side scenes were included, I felt they were unnecessary to enhance the plotline and I really would have liked the novel to be about a hundred pages less. 

Yet, at the same time, Dark is a wonderful writer and it is evident that she took much care with her prose.  She does add suspense and intrigue to her story, and I think I would highly enjoy her work if it didn’t focus so much on the sexual aspects of the characters.  That being said, I’m going to look into her other works and, reading the synopsis carefully, pick out something a little more up my alley, because I like Dark as a writer, I just didn’t care for this novel too much.  Two stars.

Random House Publishing Group has been extremely gracious in allowing me to read an ARC of this novel, via Netgalley, prior to its release on December 27th.