What are the daemons in Daemon Seer?

It’s gratifying when a reader not only enjoys your book but also understands the story on a level that many other readers overlook. The review below appears on Goodreads. I’m thrilled to bring it to you here with the permission of the reviewer, James Goltz.

Daemon Seer is the second published novel by Mary Maddox and a sequel to Talion which was published in 2012. I noticed immediately upon receiving the book that “daemon” was spelled differently, and presumably had a different meaning from, the more familiar term “demon,” the latter a term familiar to most of us as a malevolent spirit capable of inhabiting and causing serious mischief in the human host. Consider, for example, the Gerasene Demoniac in the Christian New Testament, Mark V, 1-17 who is possessed by a legion of demons, banished from his village, abuses himself with stones, cannot be constrained by chains and wails among the tombs until the demons are exorcised by Jesus. Daemons, on the other hand, are also spiritual beings but, based upon the terms Greek origin and Latin interpretation, can be either malevolent or benevolent beings. They influence human behavior and, more seriously, select some people as on-going hosts and control their behavior. These supernatural beings in their Greek origins are lesser divinities existing somewhere between the gods of the Greek pantheon and humans. But they are definitely more powerful than the humans they inhabit.

The daemons that appear in Mary Maddox novels are both benevolent and malevolent, in some cases; good and evil are embodied in the same daemon. Talion is the daemon prince who inhabits Lu Darlington along with Black Claw, a more sinister companion of Talion. Lu is the main character, a woman of 25 who tries to maintain a normal human existence despite the periodic presence of her daemon companions and who now reemerge after a ten-year period and compel her to have a child, in daemon parlance create a “knot,” so that Talion can be present to influence human events as he sees fit. Lu is a “seer” and continues in a generational line of seers who have kept Talion in the physical world. Talion has some affection for Lu but seeks to dominate and force compliance with his needs which are not necessarily commensurate with those of Lu, his host and seer.

In Maddox’s first novel, Lu is a 15 year-old girl whose parents are abusive and her friend Lisa is pursued by a serial killer. But thanks to Lu, with daemon assistance, the serial killer is dispatched though Lisa is gravely wounded and disfigured. Fast forward 10 years. Lu is working a nowhere job and without warning, Lisa appears still reeling from her near-death encounter with the “Professor of Death” and badly strung-out on pain killers. Once again, she’s fleeing, this time from a sexual predator, a renegade cop with a demon (this one is purely malevolent) of his own. This is a smart and imaginative novel with relentless action. My advice is to read Talion first and you will hit the ground running for Daemon Seer. Like Talion, Daemon Seer is a fast-paced well written thriller—a book that will keep you up late and may invade your dreams.