Inamorata by Megan Chance

This book was a free book of the month offered by Amazon Prime a few months ago, and one that I read before I started this blog. I generally do not pick books based off of their covers, but when I was looking at what was offered me it really came down to which cover looked the most promising. And I would have to say that there is something about this cover that makes it one of my favorites. So kudos to that.

The premise of this book is that there is a succubus and to survive with her youth and luster she must drain the creative power of an artist of some sort; musical, sculptures, authors, poets, etc. And every so many years she must choose one artist to inspire them to create their greatest work of art at the cost of their life or sanity; and if she does not then she reveals her true self to the world, and needless to say bad things can happen. And not to mention that every person she drains of their creative power generally commits suicide once she ends the relationship with them. It was very well done how Megan Chance ties in the idea of the succubus with different amazing works of art/poetry/etc. The story goes through a few different points of view. There is the succubus whose name is Odile, Nicholas who was one of the men she drained of creative power, Joseph who is the brother of the main character Sophie. Sophie is an extremely interesting character because she is almost the mirror image of Odile. Odile, through acting as a muse, sucks out the creativity in others while Sophie inspires others without taking anything. Sophie is specifically the muse for Joseph which is why Joseph has been able to last as long as he did in Odile's clutches.

Nicholas plays into the story by being the first to figure out what Odile is, and he makes it essentially his life's work to see an end to her; by trying to prevent her from finding the key person who extends her life. And he tries to warn away those who are the temporary fixes to the aging problem before they get to the point of committing suicide. Nicholas finds out for a brief moment that, when he thought all of his creativity and inspiration gone, that Sophie is able to inspire him. However, that all comes crashing down in the end. One of which I shall not spoil for you. What I will say though is that this book is definitely a good read and I would recommend it.