Running with the Demon (Word and The Void Trilogy Series #1) Book

Good versus evil in a cool dark urban fantasy.

Terry Brooks is of course THAT Terry Brooks, the same guy who wrote the fabulously well to do Sword of Shannara series that won much acclaim and earned oodles of coin for him and the publishers.

This takes place in a small midwestern town setting that made me think of Ray Bradbury and the idea of an invisible battle between good and evil forces also reminded me of Frank E. Peretti's 1986 novel This Present Darkness. A knight of the WORD is there and is opposed by a demon of the VOID. And so we're off on a magical adventure with a 14 year old girl protagonist, serious family drama including domestic abuse and some frightening scenes.

I'll be honest and say I did not like this as much as I wanted to. I very much liked the setting, some of the characters and the idea for the story, but I just never completely bought into his narrative. There was much to like still and maybe the highlight was the character Pick, a small sylvan faerie who I thought of as a reimagining of Shakespeare's Puck but who a friend thought of as a baby Groot - and I think she's right.