Review: Monster in My Closet by R. L. Naquin

R. L. Naquin is another new author I've read this year. Thus, this review is listed at the New Author Challenge 2013 hosted by the Literary Escapism blog. I love the fact that I'm finding so many new authors I want to read. Usually I don't read more than a half dozen new authors in a year. For whatever reason (even before I found this challenge) I read five new authors just in January!


Monster in My Closet
by R. L. Naquin
A Monster Haven series, book 1
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Published by: Carina Press, 2012
E-book, purchased
209 pages
Grade: B

I stopped believing in monsters long ago. But I knew I wasn’t imagining things when I found one in my kitchen baking muffins. I’d seen him before: lurking in my closet, scaring the crap out of my five-year-old self. Turns out that was a misunderstanding, and now Maurice needs a place to stay. How could I say no?

Ms. Naquin describes her books as urban fantasy with a cheeky edge! That's exactly right. The book is not a gritty urban fantasy, but even though it has a cheeky edge there is also danger in this world.  The cover of the book is cute and seems to indicate a light book, but several people do die in the book and Zoey is certainly in danger, too.

Zoey is human, a wedding planner, who works with her best friend. She's always been an empathic and sympathetic person. She always soothes the brides when they melt down before their wedding. Until Maurice, a closet monster, shows up in her kitchen she doesn't know a paranormal world exists and that she draws them to her, too.

I liked the idea of the closet monster. Zoey had caught a glimpse of him when she was a child, but her Mom calmed her...she thought her Mom was showing her there really wasn't a monster. Her mother was telling the monster he couldn't be in Zoey's closet! Jump ahead 20 years or so and the closet monster is sitting at her kitchen table drinking coffee! Zoey finds out there's a whole world of supernatural creatures she never knew anything about. Her mother had also been a human who drew the supernatural world to her, but she disappeared when Zoey was 8 years old. So Zoey never had a chance to talk to her mother about this hidden world.

I didn't quite understand why when she accepts that the closet monster is real she is suddenly thrown into the supernatural world and comes to the attention of a succubus demon. In this book the demon is a frightening creature and Zoey must figure out how to stop him--from killing her and killing her friends.

There is a bit of romance in this book and I would guess that continues and perhaps deepens in the next book.

I liked this book a lot and bought the next in the series which came out the end of March--Pooka in My Pantry.