dreamerfreak's review against another edition
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Murder, Slavery, Blood, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Gore, Violence, Death, Vomit, Cannibalism, and Fire/Fire injury
emhamill's review against another edition
5.0
**I received an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review**
Horror is not usually my genre, but I had so much gleeful, dark fun reading DAIMONION that I didn't care. J. P Jackson has created a kind of neutral evil Scooby Gang that is an absolute blast to get to know.
I immediately developed a soft spot for Dati Amon, the D'Alae, a winged demon. He serves a mysterious, vile creature who holds part of his soul captive. Dati's mutual obsession with Alyx, a dark young man he should have harvested as a child for his Master, is doomed from the start, it seems, but Alyx has a larger destiny that neither he nor Dati can escape. They band together with a group of other creatures of shadow who bicker, bitch and reluctantly form a cadre of supernatural soldiers who might be able to bring down their Master, and regain their freedom. Can't wait to read the next one!
Horror is not usually my genre, but I had so much gleeful, dark fun reading DAIMONION that I didn't care. J. P Jackson has created a kind of neutral evil Scooby Gang that is an absolute blast to get to know.
I immediately developed a soft spot for Dati Amon, the D'Alae, a winged demon. He serves a mysterious, vile creature who holds part of his soul captive. Dati's mutual obsession with Alyx, a dark young man he should have harvested as a child for his Master, is doomed from the start, it seems, but Alyx has a larger destiny that neither he nor Dati can escape. They band together with a group of other creatures of shadow who bicker, bitch and reluctantly form a cadre of supernatural soldiers who might be able to bring down their Master, and regain their freedom. Can't wait to read the next one!
comicsandbookdragon's review against another edition
5.0
This book was provided by JP Jackson and read on behalf of Thorns & Ink.
This is a brilliant take on the “end times” theme. This story has a Clive Barker feel to it. A little gory and a little profound. Dark, grotesque, and horrific. I was riveted. The lovely twist in this book is the infatuation. Very slight of hand by Mr. Jackson. The ominous foreboding is weighty and well-handled throughout the book.
The entire plot is well done. I am not a fan of total gore. This has enough gore to keep it interesting, and enough suspense to keep you turning the page. You get perspectives from each of the leading characters, but the mystery is never spoiled. I was very impressed. The interesting thing: at times I was finding out what was happening as the same time as the characters, and at other times, I was guessing. I was wrong….. Mr. Jackson provides the big picture without overwhelming the reader with petty details.
I enjoyed Dati’s fascinations with humans. He has a little quirk that I found completely endearing. His intent to keep a very human promise goes against his nature and I like the dichotomy. The eternal struggle if you will. The balance of good and evil. Going completely against your nature to keep a promise to someone. Such a simple thing promises. We make them and we break them. I try not to promise things that are out of my realm. This is what Dati did. He was much more empathetic than I was expecting. Even writing this I am smiling thinking about his little quirk.
Alyx, such a nosey young man. He got much more than he bargained for, but ended up winning in some ways. His goodness. He is the opposite of Dati. His lust and curiosity got the better of him. Does curiosity kill the cat? No, but it sure can mess up your world.
I got sucked into this story and couldn’t let go until the last page. The ending. It leaves you wanting to beg the author for the next one. I am not kidding. I almost went against my rule of asking about the next one. Thankfully, I can just reread this one until book 2 comes out.
Dark and Light. Where will you be when the Horsemen come?
My theme songs for this book are Heathen by 21 Pilots and Medieval Warfare by Grimes
This is a brilliant take on the “end times” theme. This story has a Clive Barker feel to it. A little gory and a little profound. Dark, grotesque, and horrific. I was riveted. The lovely twist in this book is the infatuation. Very slight of hand by Mr. Jackson. The ominous foreboding is weighty and well-handled throughout the book.
The entire plot is well done. I am not a fan of total gore. This has enough gore to keep it interesting, and enough suspense to keep you turning the page. You get perspectives from each of the leading characters, but the mystery is never spoiled. I was very impressed. The interesting thing: at times I was finding out what was happening as the same time as the characters, and at other times, I was guessing. I was wrong….. Mr. Jackson provides the big picture without overwhelming the reader with petty details.
I enjoyed Dati’s fascinations with humans. He has a little quirk that I found completely endearing. His intent to keep a very human promise goes against his nature and I like the dichotomy. The eternal struggle if you will. The balance of good and evil. Going completely against your nature to keep a promise to someone. Such a simple thing promises. We make them and we break them. I try not to promise things that are out of my realm. This is what Dati did. He was much more empathetic than I was expecting. Even writing this I am smiling thinking about his little quirk.
Alyx, such a nosey young man. He got much more than he bargained for, but ended up winning in some ways. His goodness. He is the opposite of Dati. His lust and curiosity got the better of him. Does curiosity kill the cat? No, but it sure can mess up your world.
I got sucked into this story and couldn’t let go until the last page. The ending. It leaves you wanting to beg the author for the next one. I am not kidding. I almost went against my rule of asking about the next one. Thankfully, I can just reread this one until book 2 comes out.
Dark and Light. Where will you be when the Horsemen come?
My theme songs for this book are Heathen by 21 Pilots and Medieval Warfare by Grimes
explorebooks's review against another edition
4.0
Daimonion was overall such a vivid book that left me feeling completely immersed in the world J.P. Jackson created.
Rating: 4.5/5 Stars
Daimonion is far more of a Horror novel than a Romance novel. It’s less of a romance and more of a dark and twisted story featuring a potential romance between two of the characters. While this won’t be for everyone, as I know plenty of people prefer the romance to take more of a front row seat in their books, I actually quite enjoy books like this that focus more on developing the story and world with just a bit of time spent on the characters’ feelings for each other and how that develops throughout everything taking place.
Daimonion is the first book in The Apocalypse series by J.P. Jackson that features all kinds of paranormal baddies such as demons, shifters, and witches. I find the lore behind the demons in this story fascinating as there’s so many different kinds of Demons. Then there’s the witches, who can’t use their magic without making a sacrifice and despite the witches seeing Demons as evil creatures, one can’t help but wonder what makes the witches think they’re somehow better than Demons despite their own gray-area actions that could be viewed as evil as well.
This was my first J.P. Jackson book and I can’t wait to read more of his work because dang, this book had so many unique concepts as well as creative plot developments and was just an overall crazy ride.
The Plot:
The story begins with Dati Amon, a Demon who is enslaved to his satyr master who keeps control of him by keeping ahold of a piece of his soul. Dati has next to no choice when it comes to following his master’s orders despite not always agreeing with actions he forces upon him. He does, however, try to twist and bend some orders he’s given in order to avoid following out certain tasks given to him.
“But this is what I am bid to do. I am Dati Amon, a D'Alae, and we gather back the children who belong to us.”
Daimonion, children of both a human parent and a Demon parent, have a darkness inside them that can be sort of ‘activated’ with the venom of a demon. Dati’s master often sends him to hunt down these children and bring them to the dark side. It’s while he’s on one of these hunts that he first meets Alyx as a young boy asleep in his bed. The problem is, Alyx’s human mother is not only a human but also a witch with great powers. She convinces Dati to make a deal to help her keep her son hidden. Dati and the witch keep him away from the dark side for many years before Dati and Alyx cross paths again in a less than ideal situation that leaves Dati unable to keep his promise to Alyx’s mother.
Thoughts:
I think this was quite possibly the most gory book I’ve read in awhile with it’s very vivid descriptions of rather bloody scenes. This book will not be for the faint of heart because it does not skip over or fade to black during the most twisted of moments. But, if you love horror like I do then you MUST give this book a chance.
There’s A LOT of characters introduced in this first book and it can be a bit overwhelming at times. Despite this, I found myself liking most of the characters I got to know. The only character I really didn’t care for at all would be Jenae, a teenage witch who seemed incredibly immature, even for her age. I can appreciate why the author wrote her the way he did, but that doesn’t mean I liked her very much as a character. I could, however, see her growing into a much different and more mature person as this series develops.
Alyx is a perfect example of curiosity getting the better of you. The poor kid found himself in way over his head over a simple crush he had on a mysterious guy that came into his mom’s shop. Despite these events, I can’t help believing that Alyx’s fate was already set and he would’ve ended up on the dark side regardless of whether he hunted down the mystery guy. But the kid, and let’s be honest he’s not much more than that, seriously never catches a break throughout this book as he experiences all kinds of transformations, both physical and mental, while dealing and adjusting to his new reality.
Will I be continuing this series?
I wish there was more of this series readily available. This first book was published back in 2017 and as far as I know, there haven’t been any official announcements for the next book yet. I’m hoping we hear of a release date for book two sometime this year because I would very much like to continue with this series. I’m hooked on the world that J.P. Jackson began developing in Daimonion and I would love to spend more time in it.
dan_ackerman's review against another edition
2.0
I wanted to like this book. The whole time I was reading I desperately told myself that it would get better. After all, based on the reviews, a lot of people found this book really appealing. In the end, I have to say, this book was just not for me. The writing had an unsettling mix of short, choppy narration paired with exposition-heavy dialogue between the characters. With the multiple POV shifts, between characters and between first and third person and sometimes even in the same chapter, it could be difficult to keep track of who, exactly, was doing the narrating, leading to an instance where I initially thought Dati, a monstrous demon with a need for living flesh, had “squealed a little girlish freak-out noise.”
The main character, Dati, is a unique creature; he’s morose and desperately lonely, but also frustratingly vague about himself. We don’t know very much about his backstory. He’s not human, currently, but it was never clear if at some point he had been. He claims to have a soft spot for humans but doesn’t ever seem particularly kind or caring towards the humans he encounters. Except for Alyx; when he encounters Alyx as an adult, Dati immediately takes to him. Even when they haven’t even exchanged more than two sentences, Dati is promising that he’ll be there for Alyx no matter what. I’m not sure if the author was trying to indicate that these two men are bonded on some deeper level, but it read like a physical infatuation more than anything. In fact, the other relationship that blooms in this, between a witch and a shapeshifter, also happens instantaneously and with little explanation.
The reader ends up with a lot of explanation of some things (and sometimes the same explanation twice), but other elements of the plot are frustratingly vague. In the end, the Big Bad from the whole novel is dispatched with astounding ease, only to be replaced by someone introduced at the very end of the story as the only hope preventing the apocalypse. Her betrayal is mildly foreshadowed, but she’s assisted by two characters whose only motivations seem to be ‘he’s angry his boyfriend died’ and ‘he can see the future.’
It wasn’t all bad. I think there was a lot of potential here, especially as someone’s first novel. While I was reading, I got the impression that this story might have worked a lot better as visual media, either a graphic novel or movie. I was frankly disappointed that this was billed as a horror novel; as a long-time horror junkie, maybe I’m numb to things that would turn the stomachs of a standard audience, but the horror in this seemed to come from long, blunt descriptions of violent acts paired with an unusual amount of incest subplots. But translated into images, that horror element might have been there and I think the characters would have shone through more; the author put a lot of effort and thought into this book and it shows.
The main character, Dati, is a unique creature; he’s morose and desperately lonely, but also frustratingly vague about himself. We don’t know very much about his backstory. He’s not human, currently, but it was never clear if at some point he had been. He claims to have a soft spot for humans but doesn’t ever seem particularly kind or caring towards the humans he encounters. Except for Alyx; when he encounters Alyx as an adult, Dati immediately takes to him. Even when they haven’t even exchanged more than two sentences, Dati is promising that he’ll be there for Alyx no matter what. I’m not sure if the author was trying to indicate that these two men are bonded on some deeper level, but it read like a physical infatuation more than anything. In fact, the other relationship that blooms in this, between a witch and a shapeshifter, also happens instantaneously and with little explanation.
The reader ends up with a lot of explanation of some things (and sometimes the same explanation twice), but other elements of the plot are frustratingly vague. In the end, the Big Bad from the whole novel is dispatched with astounding ease, only to be replaced by someone introduced at the very end of the story as the only hope preventing the apocalypse. Her betrayal is mildly foreshadowed, but she’s assisted by two characters whose only motivations seem to be ‘he’s angry his boyfriend died’ and ‘he can see the future.’
It wasn’t all bad. I think there was a lot of potential here, especially as someone’s first novel. While I was reading, I got the impression that this story might have worked a lot better as visual media, either a graphic novel or movie. I was frankly disappointed that this was billed as a horror novel; as a long-time horror junkie, maybe I’m numb to things that would turn the stomachs of a standard audience, but the horror in this seemed to come from long, blunt descriptions of violent acts paired with an unusual amount of incest subplots. But translated into images, that horror element might have been there and I think the characters would have shone through more; the author put a lot of effort and thought into this book and it shows.
booksthatburn's review against another edition
dark
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book.
Daimonion is a viscerally creepy with extra viscera (also insects, spiders... swarms in general). It backs up the body horror with interesting MCs and a horrific twist on several mythologies.
I’ve never been quite so grateful to be unbothered by horror related to insects and spiders, because there's a lot of it in here. The horror (arthropod-related or not) is well-handled and genuinely creepy. It felt like the author had a good sense of what traumatic events to show, and what was best left as backstory, especially in the context of horror. The rotating POV characters helped to keep the story moving even when someone was doing something potentially boring (like being in a coccoon unable to move for several days). The backstory involves a lot of bad stuff happening to people, including kids, for a very long time before the book starts and in the time jump between the introduction and the main story, so please take care of yourselves and check the CWs before starting this one.
The way the grander arc of the series is balanced with the needs of this particular volume was so great. I was very immersed in the story, began realizing that there was too much I needed to know and not enough book left, then was pleasantly surprised by how the last few chapters found that perfect stopping point. There's a lot of untapped stuff here for the series to expand on, but most of the main things driving the plot in this volume are settled, one way or another. In particular I like the way that the last part of the book contextualized the significance of things which we knew already, transforming them from their introduction as things the characters needed to deal with or work around just in this story, into bits of a much larger mythos that we don't have the full shape of yet, but I'm very intrigued. This particular blend of mythology and horror has a lot of different directions it could go, but all of them seem good from here.
Daimonion is a viscerally creepy with extra viscera (also insects, spiders... swarms in general). It backs up the body horror with interesting MCs and a horrific twist on several mythologies.
I’ve never been quite so grateful to be unbothered by horror related to insects and spiders, because there's a lot of it in here. The horror (arthropod-related or not) is well-handled and genuinely creepy. It felt like the author had a good sense of what traumatic events to show, and what was best left as backstory, especially in the context of horror. The rotating POV characters helped to keep the story moving even when someone was doing something potentially boring (like being in a coccoon unable to move for several days). The backstory involves a lot of bad stuff happening to people, including kids, for a very long time before the book starts and in the time jump between the introduction and the main story, so please take care of yourselves and check the CWs before starting this one.
The way the grander arc of the series is balanced with the needs of this particular volume was so great. I was very immersed in the story, began realizing that there was too much I needed to know and not enough book left, then was pleasantly surprised by how the last few chapters found that perfect stopping point. There's a lot of untapped stuff here for the series to expand on, but most of the main things driving the plot in this volume are settled, one way or another. In particular I like the way that the last part of the book contextualized the significance of things which we knew already, transforming them from their introduction as things the characters needed to deal with or work around just in this story, into bits of a much larger mythos that we don't have the full shape of yet, but I'm very intrigued. This particular blend of mythology and horror has a lot of different directions it could go, but all of them seem good from here.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Violence, Gore, and Death
Moderate: Child death and Torture
Minor: Child abuse and Sexual assault
CW for gaslighting, body horror, sexual abuse (backstory), sexual assault (backstory), graphic violence, torture, gore, major character death, child death, death. Please note that some of the body horror and gore in this book is related to being swarmed by or forcibly ingesting creatures including but not limited to spiders, beetles, and undifferentiated masses of insects.
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