The Demon’s Surrender (review)

The characters have been developed, the battle lines drawn, and the enemies and allies identified, but there are still many surprises, twists, and new alliances to be formed and broken in this final installment of Brennan’s trilogy (The Demon’s Lexicon, 7/09; The Demon’s Covenant, 6/10). The narration in this volume is focalized through Sin, a dancer in the Goblin Market who is set to take over as its leader and continue to protect it from the Magicians. Merris, the former market leader who now shares her body with a demon, is not convinced that Sin is ready, however, and has arranged a competition between her and Mae: whichever girl can take the pearl that protects Celeste Drake, a powerful magician, from the influence of demons will become the leader of the Market. The competition does not end there for Sin: she is beginning to have feelings for Alan, who has set his heart on Mae from their first meeting, even though Mae prefers his brother, Nick. Additionally, the key players work together to perpetrate a dangerous lie that could mean their undoing or their ultimate victory, but no matter the outcome, things are going to get bloody along the way. Obviously, this is not a book for the uninitiated in Brennan’s world, but as the culmination of a breathlessly suspenseful series punctuated throughout with keen humor and heartbreaking emotional resonance, it’s a stunner. The author manages to turn the impossible into the inevitable at every turn, keeping readers in the same position of nail-biting tension and indecision as the characters. That tension is not as plot-driven as one might expect, however; it’s more focused on the actions of the characters who variously lead with their hearts, their heads, and their bodies, and whose emotional range is hamstrung in maddening ways by history and disposition. Readers can expect to have their mettle tested and their own hearts broken and mended multiple times as they surrender to the force of this final chapter.