Demons and Lullabies (The Demons Age, #2) by Kallysten

Demons and Lullabies (The Demons Age, #2) Reviews

• 
  Holly

  
  
  
  May have slight spoilers.
  
  In Demons and Lullabies by Kallysten we meet Andrew, a father (and vampire) who has just lost his love (human) during the birth of their son. As a vampire it is illegal for him to keep the child and raise him, the baby would be taken away, which is why Andrew decides to move away from the city where he and Cara had met, fallen in love and lived at—away from where everyone knows he is a vampire.
  
  Not long after he moves and begins to set his life up again, including his Special Forces business (which takes care of ‘bad’ vampire who kill humans) Nicholas his wayward Childe (a human that he turned into a vampire) and ex-lover comes back into his life.
  
  Nicholas and Andrew’s relationship starts back again and through the book we see both snap shots of their and their son Jacob’s life.
  
  But at the time Jacob was born—demons started appearing everywhere, the first sighting really close to their old house. The coincidence does not go unnoticed by Andrew and is only highlighted by the fact that it is pretty much impossible for a vampire and human to have a baby. Andrew believes that magic may have had some part in it and that Cara may have unintentionally opened up the way for the demons.
  
  I do not think I have ever read a book like this. Not one that just highlights snapshots of characters life.
  
  Now when I say snapshots you may be thinking really short chapters about random things in one book (kind of like an anthology maybe) but that is not it at all. We start with Jacobs’s birth and have a full chapter on this and then full chapters on each years of his life up until he is seventeen. Of course Jacob is not the sole focus of the book we get both Andrew’s and Nicholas’ point-of-view as well.
  
  I loved how we got everything in the snapshots and though I would have loved to have some of them much longer so I could see what happened afterward I would not have it any other way! We get Jacob growing up, having to hide the fact that his fathers’ are vampires, his fear when they hunt demons and his desire to do the same.
  
  No matter how is fathers’ try to dissuade him he’s determined to follow in their footsteps and help them, especially when he finds out more about how he was conceived and that it may be directly linked to the demons’ appearance in their world.
  
  We also get both Andrew’s and Nicholas’ love for him, their fears and protectiveness of him, disagreements, and fights and then we also get just Nicholas and Andrew… I will only give you one guess as to what they were doing. ;)
  
  Kallysten writes a wonderfully erotic sex scene and those are parts I definitely would not have minded if they had been longer. Lol
  
  After reading this book I am very curious as to what the first book Fangs and Lullabies is about, it seems (from the description) to also be about Jacob’s birth, Andrew and Nicholas. So I am defiantly looking forward to picking it up and seeing what it is about.
  
  Through this is the second book of The Demons Age series I was never once confused or felt like I was missing something, Kallysten’s goal to make this book readable as a stand-alone novel was very successful so don’t fret if you have this book but not the first yet!
  
  Overall I completely loved this book (and desperately hope it is going to be in paperback—I want it on my bookshelf so I can pick it up again!) The character development is smooth and very obvious, the plot both interesting and engaging, it was very fast paced for me; I read it in just one sitting. Seeing Jacob grow and learn from both of his fathers’ POV and Jacob’s well was both very inventive and unique for me and not something I have ever heard (or read) done before. Come to mention it I can not think of one single book that is anything like Demons and Lullabies.
  
  Both unique heartwarming and at times erotic Demons and Lullabies is a keeper, and in my opinion a must read of 2012 for anyone who love both male/male and paranormal romance. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a great male/male read.
  
  *I received a hardcover/paperback/eBook copy/ARC of this book for free to review from the author/publisher/tour site; this in no way influenced my review, all opinions are 100% honest and my own.
• 
  maqita:3

  me gustó más q el 1 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️
• 
  Megan Riverina Romantics

  Rating: 5
  Heat Rating: 4 out of 5
  
  Andrew, Nicholas and Jacob are quite the unique family. Not only did Jacob have two fathers but they were also vampires. The latter was something that had to be kept a secret though because vampires weren't allowed to raise children - even if there was a biological link between them. And even though Andrew was a vampire, there was that biological link between him and Jacob. As impossible as it sounds, somehow the human woman that Andrew had loved and cherished for 20 years, Cara, had managed to conceive and give birth to his child before she passed away.
  
  Demons and Lullabies is written in the same unique style as it's predecessor,
  Fangs and Lullabies (review
  HERE). They're both written in a way that is completely different than anything else I've read. Each chapter is dedicated to a year in Jacob's life. Through these "snapshots" we watch Jacob grow up as well as Andrew and Nicholas learning how to be fathers. We also see the relationship between Andrew and Nicholas change over the years. As they share the years together raising Jacob their relationship grows into something more than Sire and Childe.
  
  All of the males in Demons and Lullabies are simply wonderful. Andrew is an overprotective father who worries too much. Heck, he might have even passed that trait on to Jacob.
  
  "He just couldn't help worrying.... and he entirely blamed Andrew for it: whether worrying too much was a genetic trait or something learned, his father was definitely the culprit."
  
  He's also kind of uptight. Nicholas on the other hand loves to joke around. He's the "fun" dad. And Jacob? Well... he's the best of both of them. He's compassionate, caring, courageous, responsible and insightful. I'm totally in love with him. Like seriously, if it was possible I'd dive into the book so I could try to seduce him LOL. I think it's fabulous that Kallysten can make her characters seem so real.
  
  In Fangs and Lullabies I felt that something was off. When I read Demons and Lullabies I figured out what it was. It was Cara. Cara, Jacob's mother, was missing. Yes, the first book talked about her but in this book we get a much more comprehensive view of her. Of course Andrew was still uber sensitive about her. His inability to have an in depth conversation about her is one of the few faults that I can point out in his fathering.
  
  Another thing that we get a better view of in D&L is the demons. And, well, with the demons came more action as well as some clues as to why they suddenly appeared. Let's just say that if Jacob wanted to fight demons like his fathers when he grew up, that desire only intensified when he came to some conclusions about his conception.
  
  I thought Fangs and Lullabies was great but Demons and Lullabies totally rocked! The snapshots in it only amplified what was already an extraordinary tale. This unique family and the love that binds them is something that I can't get enough of.
  
  P.S. The first words that came to mind when I finished this book? Utter contentment.
• 
  Awilk -never sleeps-

  Demons and Lullabies is the same as
  Fangs and Lullabies in that it gives the reader snippets of story as Jacob ages, and I really enjoyed some parts that wasn't covered in the first book.
  I did find that this caused some inconsistencies, but they didn't make me enjoy this any less. I love anything where Nicholas has a go at Andrew, and makes him stop and think that maybe he needs Nick more then he wants to.
  I found a bit more humour in this one, and will admit that these two books have everything I like in my comfort reads.
• 
  Sue "DavinciKittie" Brown-Moore

  Read the full review, including other similar recommended reads, here:
  http://gravetells.com/2012/09/04/revi...
  
  *** This review is SPOILER-FREE! Read on with confidence! ***
  
  Andrew and Nicholas have a sweet, loving relationship, with a slight D/s twist: Andrew is Nick's vampire sire and, while Nick doesn't always do as he's told, he has an innate need to make Andrew happy. Together they raise Jacob, Andrew's biological son, conceived and born through magic and mystery. On the night of Jacob's birth, his mother's heart stopped beating just as he was born, then the demon sightings began... always in proximity to Jacob or the city he was born in.
  
  The story skips through time and highlights moments from Jacob's childhood and the relationship between his two dads as they defend unsuspecting humans against near-constant demon attacks. Initially, the story switches between Andrew's and Nicholas's point of view, exploring their bond and narrating Jacob's early years from an outside perspective. Once Jacob is old enough to talk and toddle, we're treated to some endearingly adorable and surprisingly mature thoughts and get to see his fathers from a new perspective, highlighting some of the more subtle aspects of their partnership.
  
  As precocious and precious as Jacob is as a child, it is exciting and unexpectedly compelling to watch him grow into a sweet, strong young man with excellent judgement, a level head, and a heart of gold. Seeing him with his first love, his first demon kill, learning the hard way how to deal with judgmental peers, developing his defensive skills and protective personality... it's all so smooth and flowing and endearing that I don't care that the battle scenes aren't blow-by-blow and the sex scenes tend toward sensual rather than erotic. This is a story about a boy who shouldn't exist, his unusual family unit, and the brilliant ribbons of his life as he becomes a man. Demons and Lullabies is a life story, rich and fulfilling. Its paranormal aspects take somewhat of a backseat to the characters' relationships and the flowing passage of time, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
  
  While there is certainly a good amount of demon fighting and fangy love bites happening in the periphery of this story, the focus is on love and family bonds and the challenges of growing up with two dads who happen to be traditional vampires. Some of the scenes with Jacob as a child really squeezed my heart, made me feel what he was feeling. I usually don't care for stories with kids in them, but in Demons & Lullabies it didn't bother me at all. I was so caught up in the heart of this touching story that the lack of action and smut rarely crossed my mind. Oh there's sex and it's fairly steamy, but it's not overly explicit or gratuitous; it enhances the mens' relationship rather than defining it.
  
  As soon as this book ended, I thought "this better be a series!" I didn't want it to end and am looking forward to seeing Jacob grow into his adulthood fighting beside his fathers. When I said this to author Kallysten, she reassured me that there is indeed a story about Jacob's adult journey, called One Last Lullaby. Demons & Lullabies is a captivating, enriching story and is a GraveTells recommended read!
  
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  Amazon! ~~~@
• 
  Kallysten Kallysten

  How this story came to be...
  
  When I was writing Fangs & Lullabies, I was confronted to a new but major problem: I couldn’t stop! Before I knew it, the story was well over 100,000 words, and I felt I still had a lot to say. After all, I was telling eighteen years worth of stories! I finally managed to stop and send the manuscript to my editor. Getting it back, however, I was confronted to another problem: she thought the story lacked unity. In particular, she wanted me to either ditch a snapshot or develop it and reference it again in the book, namely the revelation that the demon invasion might have been triggered by the magic that brought Jacob to life.
  
  I couldn’t get rid of this anecdote; it was the beginning of an explanation to the demons! Writing more on the other hand wasn’t a problem, seeing how I had to force myself to stop in the first place. I was reluctant to create a longer book, though, especially in the light of looming deadlines. The solution was simple: rather than adding a stronger demon plotline to the book, I’d center a second book around it, and I already had a title for it: Demons & Lullabies.
  
  I ended up setting that revelation snapshot as a teaser for Demons & Lullabies at the end of Fangs & Lullabies, cut a few scenes to keep for Demons & Lullabies, and started writing it almost right away. The demon storyline shows us the evolution of Andrew’s feelings in regard to fighting, how Nicholas joins the fight, and how Jacob, as he grows up, understands what his dads do and discovers how his birth might be linked to the demons, decides he, too, will be a fighter. We don’t see much actual fighting except for Jacob’s first fights; I was always more interested in the reasons why they fight than in depicting battles, which I have done in other books in the Demons Age series.
  
  I had decided early on that the second book would be structured like the first, with snapshots from every year of Jacob’s life, and that gave me the opportunity to revisit some snapshots and expand on them. For example, the very first scene shows us Andrew the morning after Cara’s death as he has to push through his grief to plan his next steps. A later one shows Jacob teaching Kirsten to skate, as he had promised in Fangs & Lullabies.
  
  Other snapshots cast a new light on things only alluded to in the first book: where did Nicholas get the lighter he carries everywhere? How did Sam Jones end up in the mud? Why was Andrew so mad at Nicholas in the ‘dirvoce’ incident? A few of these questions were asked by readers, and I was happy to answer them.
  
  And then, more snapshots explore things I didn’t get a chance to touch on in the first book, like Jacob asking about his mother, or Andrew’s other Childe, Roxanne, and how she finally follows the same path as Nicholas.
  
  Now that Demons & Lullabies is released, I do need to answer another question… Will I stop here, or do I have enough snapshots to share for a third full-length story?
  
• 
  Gaele

  I received an eBook copy of this book from the author for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review, and all conclusions are entirely my own responsibility.
  
  Let me start off by saying that this is very much a story of a family and how they navigate the difficulties that are encountered as a family. That being said – this is a ‘non-traditional’ family, with a homosexual relationship at the forefront of the sexual activities, and if that concept is not something you are comfortable with, you may have difficulties reading this book. During the sex scenes, and the occasional homophobic comments addressed to the child, Jacob, are the only times you note a difference in this family from any other you could pick up off the street. Well, perhaps there is another difference, both Andrew (the biological father) and Nicholas (his progeny, lover and co-parent) are vampires, and manage an agency that eradicates demons that are suddenly appearing in their area.
  
  The author has created a series of vignettes that essentially take one year of Jacob’s life, and distill it into the ‘highlights’ of the moment and put those into a chapter. We start with Jacob as an infant, and watch Andrew deal with the grief at the loss of his wife, and the joy and fear he feels with having a son to raise. By the time we have reached Jacob’s heading to school, you are so engrossed in the story, and so attuned to his fears as well as those worries his Dads hold that it literally becomes impossible to put the book down. What’s amazing to me after reading the book is that the author managed to develop 3 characters in a way that makes them tangible and complete – without major holes in their personalities, even though we are really just sort of ‘checking in’ on them every year or so for 18 years. I just realized that this was the second in a series, yet this book stands alone proudly, and is one of the better books that mixed plot with erotic content that I have read this year. I should talk more about the paranormal content, but even it was buried within the more dominant storyline of the love and growth in a family.
  
• 
  Salsera1974

  This one is tough to review and rate. If you didn't read the first book in the series, Fangs and Lullabies, and further, if you only enjoyed it a little bit (and if you don't remember it), don't bother reading the second entry. You won't like it -- this is a series of vignettes that follows the same structure as the first book: you watch two vampires, Andrew and Nicholas, raise their son, Jacob, from birth through the age of 17, and each chapter is a year in Jacob's life (and a lot of the book will make no sense if you don't remember what happened in Fangs and Lullabies). We see little stories from each character's perspective, and it's fun if you appreciate the lack of a steady storyline; you get snapshots that ultimately tell you what it means for these three characters to become a family. One might be frustrated -- it's the same device that you see in the first book, simply told with different stories. Or, one might enjoy it, if the approach worked really well for you. I'm going to rate this as a 3.5 star book, but be warned -- you might take a few days to read it. This is sweet, if it's your thing. Or you might not finish, if you don't feel like reading Fangs and Lullabies twice. I didn't mind.
• 
  Alex Alden

  It's a retelling of the first book. So pointless.
  
  At first, I thought it would continue where the story left off, but it rewound all the way to the beginning of the last book, and started from there.
  
  Then I thought at least it would have the chance to actually look at the big events in their lives which were glossed over the first time (like that weird injury of Nick's that was never really explained) but instead these events barely even got a mention.
  
  The quality of the writing was better than the first book, it's too bad it wasn't put to an actual use. It's like behind the scenes footage rather than as sequel. I stopped at 40%, still waiting for something new to happen.
• 
  Ashley D

  Jacob has always wanted to follow in his father's steps, fighting the demons that show up at night. Andrew fights demons because he is the only one strong enough, being a vampire and feeling responsible. Nicholas, his other father, starts giving him sword lessons under the ruse of playing. Andrew doesn’t want Jacob fighting demons or getting hurt, but as he watches his son grow and become more determined, he realizes there isn’t much he can do to stop him.
  
  This book covers the same timeline as the first book, but it is told from Jacob's point of view rather than from Andrews. We get to see how Jacob feels about those events that cause his dads to be injured and why he is so set on fighting demons like his father. Jacob was adorable as a child, and as he got older, his personality started to develop. Once he learned that demons came about, most likely, because of the spell his mother had used to get pregnant, he became even more determined to fight the demons. I liked the fact that although this book is a companion to the first book, we get a completely different view of those acts from a child’s perspective.
  
• 
  Wendy❤Ann

  I cannot believe it has been eight long years since I read the first book in this series. Where does the time go??? Despite that gap in time, I was able to jump into book two without any refresher and feel the continuity of the storyline. It probably helped that I had loved book one so much that it stuck with me! This second book provided a great view into Jacob growing up and the personal nature of the fight with the demons. Very good addition!!
• 
  Seiran

  I really enjoyed this book which is the sequel to Fangs and Lullabies. This story is the continuation of looking into the life of Andrew and Nicholas as they raise Jacob together. This book skips through their life highlighting the ups and downs of raising a son born of mystery and magic. It does skip POV throughout this book, being narrated by both Andrew and Nicholas as they give their perspective on life.
  
  This book travels the time of when Jacob is younger to growing into a lovable teenager, finding love for the first time, killing his first demon and loving his two fathers who are vampires.
  
  I liked this book a lot it has a sweetness to it and you get a first hand look at the intense love between Andrew, Nicholas and Jacob. The POV shifting might irritate some, but in this case it really works for this story.
• 
  Ilona

  The mark of a good author is to move a person to tears when reading their work. With this wonderful collection of vignettes, following Jacob and his Fathers during his growing up years, Kallysten hit that mark. I read the first in this series a while ago now, and was delighted to revisit the family, and Kallysten did not disappoint me as she dragged me into their world. I really love Andrew, Nicholas and Jacob and was delighted to find out that Kallysten is busy writing a follow up story about Jacob as a grown up.
• 
  Tj

  Not as good as the first book. This felt like a retelling of the first. I did enjoying seeing a little more of the MCs' lives but I'm still left with the same questions as I had from the first. I still enjoyed the story but didn't gain much new from it.
• 
  Gina

  I thought this book is the story after Jacob turned 17, but it's not. The story starts over from the very beginning when Jacob was born.
  Maybe I would read this when I have more time...
• 
  Lily

  3.9 stars.
• 
  Andrea

  Same story as bk 1, just told from son's view. Very disappointing.