The Devil’s Metal Review: A Spooky Rockstar Romance

I had to put this one down at 1am because it was creeping me out too hard to keep reading in the dark, and I mean that as a compliment. The Devil’s Metal is the rare book that drops a 1970s rock ‘n’ roll romance into actual horror and both things work. Karina Halle puts you on a tour bus with a band you’ll fall for and a brooding guitarist you’ll fall harder for, then slowly lets you feel that something is very wrong. This is my full review of The Devil’s Metal. The romance, the scares, the slow burn, and whether that cliffhanger pays off.

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. This post contains affiliate links. That means we receive a small commission at no cost to you from any purchases you make through these links.

What Is The Devil’s Metal About?

The Devil’s Metal by Karina Halle is set in the 1970s and follows Dawn Emerson, a 21 year old aspiring music journalist who lands the assignment of her dreams: going on the road with Hybrid, her favorite rock band, to write the feature for Creem Magazine that could finally make her career. That means living on the tour bus, full backstage access, and getting close to Hybrid’s guitarist, Sage Knightly, who is every bit as magnetic as the poster that hung on her teenage bedroom wall and a lot grumpier in person. But the tour doesn’t go the way Dawn imagined. The band’s manager keeps blocking her story, the groupies start behaving strangely, and Dawn slowly realizes Hybrid is hiding something. It’s the first book in Karina Halle’s two part Devils Duet, a rock ‘n’ roll horror paranormal romance, very loosely inspired by Halle’s own years as a music journalist.

The Devil’s Metal Review

I’ll start by saying that this book scared the bejesus out of me! No, not all the time, but I did have to put it down for the night because it was not what I wanted to be reading at 1am while everything was dark and I was getting creeped out. LOL But I enjoyed every bit of it!

If you take ALMOST FAMOUS and you throw in a decent amount of QUEEN OF THE DAMNED, minus the vampires but keeping it paranormal, then you will get THE DEVIL’S METAL. And if there is one author out there that can pull that off and make me want to read it and like it, then that’s Karina Halle.

This is a unique story set in the 1970s of a young aspiring reporter and music reviewer who gets the chance of a lifetime… going on tour with her favorite band to write an article about them for Creem Magazine. It’s a tough world out there for a female journalist and this is the piece that will make her known. Of course, it helps she’s with the band.

Dawn is 21, her mother killed herself, her dad is an alcoholic and her younger brother has Tourette Syndrome. To say she’s had a tough life is an understatement. She still has a great attitude and a lot of drive. The love interest in this story is the dark and brooding guitarist of Hybrid, Sage Knightly. I had an instant fascination with him but it wasn’t until closer to the end of the book that he started pulling at the strings of my heart. And then there’s the band.

“We all lost our souls when we joined this band……”

The band has issues, and they don’t know it yet. I won’t tell you what the book is about because it was fun to be surprised and spooked along while reading it, but I will say this… Be careful what you wish for.

This book had a bit of everything. Crazy rockstar sex and drug antics, near death moments, creepy gross moments, and a whole lot of WTF?!?! Karina Halle didn’t pull any punches and dug in. I’ve come to think of her books as MUST WATCH because, quite frankly, this would make a great horror movie!

The ending was not how I expected things to go down, and the twist (or would that be a cliffhanger) at the end was something I had seen coming for a little while. The clues were there, but it still doesn’t make sense to me. I just don’t think Dawn did the same as Sage, so how did she find herself in that position. But that’s a story for the next book to explain. 🙂

On a side note…

From the blurb… “The Devil’s Metal is the first book in a two-part New Adult Horror/Paranormal Romance and very (very!) loosely based on the author’s exploits as a music journalist. Hell comes in different forms.”

What? Seriously!? I just have to know which parts are the “loosely” based on… teehee.

The Devil’s Metal FAQ

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