Andín dal Rovi, the girl of Susan Jane Bigelow's THE DEMON
GIRL'S SONG, wants to get out of her small town and attend
university in the big city. But her father has declared he
can't afford to send both his children, so her
brother gets to go even though he'd rather practice his
fiddle. Her life gets more complicated when she finds
herself sharing her head with a thousand-year-old demon who
has been emperor for the past millennium, moving from head
to head as the rulers change. She escapes her small town in
hopes of a big adventure which turns out disastrous. Turns
out the demon not moving into the new ruler's head was no
accident, and she and her demon passenger are exiled. So,
all she wants now is to go home.
A ghostly woman visits Andín's dreams, hinting that there
is some task she must accomplished. As she travels her
world, meeting friends and foes along the way, she starts
to piece together that her world is in jeopardy, and she
may have a chance of fixing it.
The romance in this tale was unique and refreshing: Andín
falls for the wife of a foreign diplomat and not only
because a male demon is in her head. Very few young adult
novels tread in this territory, and it's a shame as young
lesbian girls need advice just as much as young
heterosexual ones and want to read stories in which they
might star without having to play roles they don't
understand.
Bigelow's characters come off the pages nicely as do her
descriptions although she spends a bit too much time with
the demon delving into his past historic experiences. But
this is a minor quibble. I'm glad this book is a stand-
alone novel as there aren't enough of those these days with
every book being the beginning of a new series although I
do hope to explore more of Bigelow's work.
More than anything, Andín dal Rovi wants to escape her small
town life, helping her father in the store, watching her
younger brother prepare to take the place at University
she’d longed for.
Instead of escape, she gets a thousand-year-old demon stuck
in her head, and she loses everything – her home, her family
and her country.
In the quest to regain her identity, she finds herself
racing against time to uncover the secrets of her world –
and save it from utter annihilation.
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