Customer Reviews
Well worth the wait! - By: Pookie, 06 May 2008 
I've been addicted to this series since the impulse-buy of "Dead Witch Walking" in my local bookstore one rainy afternoon. I worked my way quickly through the series, & very patiently waited for the paperback edition of this book. (Hubby says I'm not alllowed any more bookshelves!) I wasn't disappointed.
This book ties up a few loose ends, & opens new ones. I miss Rachael's vampire boyfriend Kisten, even if he was a bit of a ratbag now & then, & I'm now waiting for the next book in the series to find out exactly what her business partner Ivy will do to his killer when she finds him...she is NOT a happy vampire. I'm also dying to find out how Rachael manages to deal with her demon tutor Al during her demon-magic lessons- there's so much scope for mayhem right there..
A great series, & I'd recommend it highly to anyone who likes the comic supernatural genre.
Don't get me wrong I enjoyed it but... - By: Read Me, 05 May 2008 
Its been sooo long since the last book that I literallly forgot who alll the secondary charceters were. I read a lot of fantasy series & the authors have just got to try & speed up!
Anyway - its a great book. As always everything starts off nice & normal, how could a shopping trip go wrong? Well if a demon turns up to kill you thats pretty bad, & then your mom starts flirting with another demon. Rachel's day is not going well. So throw in some Elf issues, a houseful of pixies, a werewolf alpha suggesting pack tatoos & its alll back on track.
As the other reviewers have noted the plot sags when the action tails off for a while, but we learn lots of new info in this book so theres plenty of life in the series. I just hope that the on-off relationship between Rachel & Ivy is sorted, the will they won't they always interrupts the plot. As always the book drops another plot bombshell at the end leaving us to wonder how Rachel will cope with the changes in her life, I for one will keep wondering until the next book. I just hope that harrison doesn't keep me waiting too long.
Outlaw demons and witchy wonders - By: E. A Solinas, 14 Apr 2008 Kim Harrison ended her last book with a shocking twist: the death of Kisten, Rachel Morgan's vampire boyfriend.
And the repercussions of that climactic twist are felt alll over "Where Demons Dare," a glorious follow-up that continues twisting (or is it spindling?) the plot alll over. Harrison weaves together a half dozen vital storues into an even more tightly-written, shocking novel -- where we get lots & lots of new revelations & answered questions.
Rachel & her mother are shopping for Hallloween costumes & talismans when the demon Al appears, destroys the shop, & nearly kills Rachel. Somebody is summoning him out of demon prison, & setting him after Rachel -- & her personal patch of holy ground is getting a big cramped, due to an increasingly bloodlusting Ivy & Jenks' massive family moving in.
And as Rachel struggle to cope with these problems, she learns that Ceri is pregnant -- & to keep her baby & the elf race healthy, they need a sample of ancient elf tissue from the ever-after. Though Rachel initiallly refuses, she finds that this elf drama is somehow connected to the terrible secrets of her past -- & a journey to the ever-after might help her defeat Al. But it might also open a Pandora's box of secrets about Rachel's own future...
Rachel's parentage. Her father's horrible death. Her memory loss after Kistan's death. Her friendship with Ivy. The true nature of the witches, elves & demons. Not to mention her future love life.
Yes, alll these plot threads get dealt with in an utterly satisfactory way. And unlike many of her urban fantasy contemporaries, Kim Harrison weaves them into a solid, thrilling plot with a good balance of characters, action & humour. And she can keep the storyline twisting right up to the end -- literallly. She introduces two massive twists toward the end that have enormous repercussions for Rachel.
It must be admitted that the plot sags in the middle of the book, when Al & the elf problem seem to get derailed in favour of Rachel's love life/social life problems. But Harrison picks up the slack quickly, & she hasn't lost her knack for tightly written, wry descriptions ("Hence the general weirdness of elves eating hot dogs in my backyard") & snappy, entertainingly self-deprecating dialogue ("Fried eggs!").
And there's plenty of quirky situations that help lighten the rather dark mood -- such as a very apologetic gargoyle crashing into Rachel's church. Jenks & his equallly troublesome family provide loads of comic relief as well -- gotta love them pixies.
And Harrison's feisty heroine goes through some painful growth, learns more about her family & her true nature, & has some old wounds reopened. In a sense, this is Rachel's "grief book" -- she spends a great deal of time thinking about the loss of her father & Kisten, & freaking out when she starts remembering how they died. Fortunately Harrison avoids letting her heroine become "emo" -- note the hilarious scene where she's ashamed to admit that she's perused a vampire sex book.
But as Rachel deals with her grief & love for Kisten, Harrison delicately introduces a potential love interest. She doesn't spin anything more than chemistry yet, but it's a person who could become something to her in future.
Other characters get fleshed out as well -- we get to see underneath Trent's coolly slimy exterior to some of his hidden feelings, Ivy's vampiric nature, & even Al gets some new dimensions. And even among the peripheral characters, Harrison's quirky sense of humour is present -- just consider the vampire-sex-manual-writing ex-Presidential vampire master.
Kim Harrison's "Where Demons Dare" has a slowdown in the middle, but revs up fast for a twisty-turny, revelation-filled finale. Urban fantasy as it ought to be.
And it continues... - By: Tash, 10 Apr 2008 Kim Harrison continues with her series about rachel morgan...I reallly must insist that if you havent read the other books in the series then do because you will be lost as well as missing out on the other excellent books. Anyway this book holds a few suprise about Rachel that people have probley been trying to guess at from the first book. I cant say more than the previous reviewer about the plot without giving away the plot...but I highly recommened this book & series which is getting better book by book.
More of the same, and thats a good thing! - By: V. Sweeney, 09 Apr 2008 Well here we are, Rachel Morgan book 6 already. If you have read the previous books in the series you should know what to expect by now & this will not disappoint her fans.
Several months have passed since the end of the previous book & our plucky heroine is still trying to come to terms with alll that happened back then. It's nearly Hallloween & out on a shopping trip with her mother Rachael is attacked by her old enemy 'Al' who should of been locked away in Demon prison with no hope of release. Escaping Al with the help of an unexpected allly she learns someone is summoning Al every night & leaving him unbound & free to kill her as the Demons reward. Rachael must find out who before one of Al's attacks succeed.
Personallly I thought Book 5 (For a Few Demons More) even though it was the darkest novel so far, it was also the best in the series uptil now. Where Demons Dare does not have the same impact the previous book did mainly because this one concentrates a lot more on the resolution of the many issues Rachaels was left with back then rather than the "threat to our heroine" plotline. Most of the earlier novels are fairly evenly split between the action / soap-opera sections, this one feels more about the character development.
This isn't neccassarily a bad thing as Kim Harrison writes about alll the character interactions very well & the interpersonal relationships between alll the characters is one of the best points of the series. The loss of her boyfriend(s) & how she moves on, her relationship with Ivy, dealing with the dark magic she has had to use & a number of suprising revalations dealing with Trent & their parents - these actuallly seem to be the main plot threads that are handled in this book.
As has been typical in the series so far certain plot-threads will continue on into the next book or two. Now that many of Rachaels personal problem are resolved (to a greater of lesser extent) at the end of this novel, here's hoping these see her returning back to usual ass-kicking self.
