Melkor & Purity (Melkor & Purity, #1) by Kim Faulks

Melkor & Purity by Kim Faulks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One year, Purity Jane Anderson sent her Christmas wish letter to Satan. She wanted a puppy. Lucifer gave her a hellhound.

I found this the first book in the Melkor & Purity series to be very entertaining, smart, and creative. Although presenting a vision of Hell similar to that described by Dante, we meet a Lucifer he certainly never envisioned – he almost seems like a pretty decent guy. In fact, the story really begins when he tries to fulfill Purity Jane Anderson’s Christmas wish for a puppy but, as he sees something intriguing in the young girl, he hooks her up with a hellhound of approximately the same age level.

Purity and Melkor grow up together as friends with frequent play dates and I thought the characterizations of the two leads when children very amusing. Purity is a lively, mischievous child, a real handful for her very traditional parents, and Eric is the bratty little brother we all grew up with.

I liked how the author developed their characters as they aged. They expressed the same kind of moodiness, angst, and withdrawal from their families to become independent units pretty much the same as most teens display. Bullied at school for being overweight, Purity has lost some of her earlier sass and is burdened with low self-esteem. And when high school graduation arrives and their friendship has grown to more, both struggle with communicating their desire to leap friendship to love.

But there is more to their story, Purity is fated to become a hunter and Melkor is a hellhound and both are meant to protect, to stand between the horrors of Hell and this world. I look forward to reading more about Purity’s training to take up her destiny and Melkor taking his place in Lucifer’s hierarchy in the next books.

The narrator for the Audible edition of this book is Heather Murdoch with HotGhost Productions and I thought she did a competent job giving voices to the various characters in the story with only a few mispronunciations. I recommend this book to readers that enjoy paranormal, coming-of-age stories.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving a free copy.

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