Slay

Milly was finding life tough enough as she and her mother moved around with the latter’s operatic career.  However things go from bad to worse when Milly arrives home to find out that her mother has been taken over by a particularly nasty demon.  What Milly did not expect was that she would be saved by the members of a world famous boy band, appropriately named ‘Slay’.  The five members of the group and their manager/mentor Gail lead a double life; playing free gigs whenever they are called to fight demons somewhere and travelling the world as a consequence.  Milly finds herself drawn in to this world as the team try to stop her ‘mother’ from bringing back the Aztec god of Death and Demons, but they only have a couple of days to do so and time is really running out on them.

This is a really great adventure for those who crave a bit of darkness in their stories.  It is not as gory as say Darren Shan’s oeuvre but there is some death and destruction, so perhaps not for the fainthearted.  It is a really fast paced, action filled story that will appeal to both boys and girls particularly because of the boy band set-up.  The heroine is strong willed and a bit of a geek, so not the most obvious person to be fighting demons.  Having lost her father two years previously she does not want to lose her mother, despite their relationship not being obviously close.  The story is told from the perspective of Milly and of JD, one of the band members and this provides balance and also an element of friction, as the latter worries that Milly might affect the dynamics of the band.  I surprised myself by really enjoying this story and find myself looking forward to the next in the series.  Despite its theme it provides a bit of ‘light’ relief and is a very easy read, depending as it does on action and plot rather than character and emotion.  This is a great choice for the secondary library.