Hello there, Curious Ones! I just finished this book called Beyond the Veil by author Pippa Dacosta.
To begin, a quick overlook of the characters. The protagonist is a woman named Charlie/Muse, half demon – half human who five years ago walked away from one of the princes of hell, Akil – also known as Mammon, the demon prince of greed – Akil is the main antagonist. Then you have Stephan who is also half-demon, half-human who goes through the book as a bad guy, then a good guy, then a bad guy, then a good guy and so forth until the end of the book, which I believe he was a good guy. You also have a couple of good supporting characters, mainly Nica who ends up being Stephan’s half sister and Ryder who is a human and Stephan’s friend/handler/weapons expert. I am not 100% certain if Nica is more than human, but she is not part demon; I don’t think.
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Beyond the Veil – Beginning
So, as you can tell, this book is full of demons, threats, running, killing, betrayal and sifting through the lies. From the start, I was quite intrigued by this book. It began with her being requested to “read” the metal of an old blade which you find out is a skill she has and then her metal-working shop is blown up which leaves her standing on the curb. This is the point where you discover she has a really bad past that has caught up to her.
You are then introduced to Akil, the big baddie in the novel. From the start, I was not happy about him. He gave off this air of arrogance, which why wouldn’t you have one as one of the seven princes of hell, but he just rubbed me the wrong way and I didn’t like him. The author did an amazing job with character depiction in this book. I was instantly sucked into the world that was created the moment I started reading. Anyways, Akil instantly started telling Muse what to do about her situation and I was annoyed by it.
Putting together the Past
Throughout Beyond the Veil, you get little bits of information about Muse’s past, including Akil. She was a half-human demon and in the demon world those that are half-human are slaughtered at birth. She was sold to a lesser demon who used and abused her for years, parading her in front of his friends and taking her to the point of death just to bring her back over and over again.
You are all readers and can imagine what I mean by used and abused; especially in a world that has demons, she lived through hellish torture daily for the first few decades of her existence. She was ‘saved’ by Akil, who taught her how to bring forth her demon, summon her element of fire, and kill her owner to free herself. You also get the information about Akil in regards to her past. I was right to dislike him instantly because he essentially began to ‘own’ and ‘control’ her through manipulation. Mental abuse is still abuse.
So, in the middle of the book Muse realizes that Akil must have sent the assassins and hellhounds to kill her. She originally assumed it was her brother, Val who despised her existence and had spent her entire youth trying to kill her as she “rightfully should have been dead the moment she was born.” She was put on the trail of Val by…you guessed it…Akil. So, she summons her brother and after a brief exchange she was told that it wasn’t him trying to kill her this time around. This is when she finally believes that Akil is the one doing all of this in an act of revenge for her walking away from him five years ago. At some point she confronts him about it and he tries to kill her.
Beyond the Veil’s Drama, Drama, Drama!
While she is having this internal turmoil, she has been saved by Stephan twice and he has tried to convince her that Akil is behind all of it. More drama happens and they end up together in a cold destination where Stephan is revealed to be an ice elemental half-demon. Both the perfect and worst opposite to her fire elemental half-demon. At this point a love triangle is formed between Akil, Muse, and Stephan.
During the time at the cabin she is trained for a little by Stephan and crosses the veil into the demon world – hell – to call her element and gain access to an unlimited power source. She is also told that she is stronger than the full demons and they want to kill all the half-demons because they have the power to fully immerse themselves in either world and therefore are jealous, which is what cause the slaughter before they can become a threat. She succeeds in tearing the veil open and calling massive amounts of power.
In this section of the book you also learn a little about Stephan’s past and his father; just enough for him to continue being a mystery. She reads the blade from the first scene of the book and discovers that her ex-boyfriend was killed by Akil with the blade and she goes inferno and starts her determination to hopefully eliminate Akil by sending him through the veil with a one-way ticket. All with the help of Stephan of course. However, because she crossed into the veil it sent a power surge and “all demons felt it” which is how Akil now found them with his hellhounds.
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Some Aggravation Ensues…
This is honestly the point where I get a bit aggravated with Beyond the Veil. Stephan is revealed to have been working with Akil the whole time, testing her abilities as a demon because Akil wants to take her across the veil and use her for himself. Either way, Akil is slowed down enough that they are able to escape, but Stephan is gravely injured so he tells her to take him to Ryder. Ryder then takes him to an underground human movement that is designed to take out demons that cross into the real world.
It is revealed that Stephan’s father is the head of this movement and he is a massive a**hole who uses and abuses all he can in order to be a success….including his own children which is where it is revealed that Nica, Akil’s assistant is undercover from the agency and Stephan’s half-sister and their father could care less about her safety.
In the end, they hatch a plan. It will send Akil across the veil and not be able to return to the real world with a serum that represses the demon part of someone. The serum was experimented with on Stephan growing up and Muse throughout the scene in the agency has her demon repressed the whole time which makes her realize that she doesn’t want a normal human life. She wants the chaos that comes with being half-demon. So, they hatch the plan that ensures Nica’s safety and Akil’s demise and she gets her demon back and dresses the part to make it a success.
However, you guessed it, Stephan betrayed her to Akil and told him of their plan in order to guarantee Nica’s safety. Even though it was for a good cause, the way the book played out, there was hardly any threat to Nica. I mean, throughout the ENTIRE book, Akil is obsessed to no end about Muse and only Muse. He may have threatened Nica at some point, but the way the characters were built, I don’t think Nica was in too much danger; other than what comes with being the personal assistant to a demon prince…
Anyways, Stephan betrayed her, she got angry, figured out that Akil was a powerful energy source for her because he was made of fire like she was, and she began to drain him of his energy. She took so much on that she sliced the veil open and began to pass out. Stephan, switching sides…again…grabbed Akil and crossed the one-way access through the veil with Akil so that he was forever banished from the real world. Muse passes out and regain conscious a few days later at the agency compound and after a few weeks of refusing to cooperate, she decides she will use their training to find a way to get Stephan back from beyond the veil.
…And There You Have It
There is more betrayal and side-swapping in this book than almost any other book I have read, especially for being as short as it was. I don’t have too much to complain about for Beyond the Veil by Pippa Dacosta other than being short and filled with an extensive amount of information. Almost too much.
I loved how the characters were built. You liked them and then hated them, you were curious about them and then angry at them, and you wanted them to succeed and then you understood why they did the terrible things they did. Beyond the Veil can truly connect to you and take you into that world, giving you a small break from any stress you are encountering. It was a good thinker book that kept you wanting to know why they did what they did; the choices they made both hurting and healing.
With all this said, I am ready for another book!
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Beyond the Veil was received as a free rental from Amazon Prime. Prime members get one free rental from most Kindle books on Amazon.