The Demon Lover

By Dion Fortune

Book Overview

A secretary finds herself psychically bound to her boss in this supernatural thriller from one of the leading luminaries of twenieth-century esoteric thought.

The Demon Lover was first published in 1927, the same year as H.P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu. Dion Fortune was among a generation of occult horror writers that formed popular culture's obsession with secret societies, vampires, demons, ritual magic, and dark powers lurking in the shadows. What sets Fortune apart from so many of her contemporaries is her deep knowledge of the inner workings of magical orders, rites, and practices, and her own freethinking on occult subjects, demonstrated in the classic Psychic Self-Defense and The Mystical Qabalah.

When young Veronica Mainwaring is hired by Justin Lucas as his secretary, she has no idea that she will soon find herself being used as his own personal trance medium. With an invisible collar keeping her bound to Lucas, her every attempt at escape is foiled by a yank on the unseen chain. Veronica soon finds herself trapped in Lucas' quest for power and knowledge beyond the earthly plane as a story of past lives, hidden evils, and a twisted love affair come to life in this occult thriller.

"A convincingly unsettling book. Fortune evokes a world of powers that can threaten you; that are both part of a coherent moral mythology, and also cloaked in mystery. Things are unpredictable, though there is an order to them . . . It's not a book for every taste, maybe. But it's worth a look, for a distinctive handling of magic and its overlap with the everyday world." --Black Gate

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 157863492X
• ISBN13: 9781578634927
• Release Date: November 2010
• Publisher: Weiser Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Not a Classic, But Close

I liked this novel a lot. Though not as good as her own Sea Priestess and even The Winged Bull, this novel, typical of Fortune's fiction, as a darkness and occult wisdom to it without pigeonholing herself or its audience into it. The problem with today's generation is that they got progressively worse as time went on, and more and more incompetant. The occult fiction genre reached a bad low around these times with the dread Necronomicon recieving a new release. Fortune didn't make pompous aspirations like any Necronomicon, didn't codify the occult into a religion like the Church of Satan, it wasn't a hoax like Crowley. Basically, I like it because it keeps it more reality based with an engrossing plot and believable characters while retaining the humor of suckering you out of money for enteratinment. Fortune and this novel is to be commended with knowing the occult and not just walking on thin ice.

Occult wisdom masked in the guise of fiction.

Dion Fortune was an Amazing woman.This book was first published in 1927. Dion was heavily involved in the Occult community of that century England. Prior to her involvment with the Occult she was a psychologist. In this book she reveals her wisdom of human nature along with her great knowladge of the Occult. I suggest this book to those who either really enjoy a good supernatural story, Or those versed in psychic, occult, Wiccan, or paranormal studies. To explore this book is to go back in time to the days of secret societies, when magic was Magick.

Love triumphs over the powers of darkness

Veronica is a young woman who is innocently plunged into a world of occult intrigue and danger.She becomes the secretary of Lucas who uses her psychic abilities to further his own ambitions.He is caught out by his own secret fraternity and escapes with Veronica as a hostage.She falls in love with him, and it is only her love which saves him from the Abyss into which he has fallen as a result of his abuse of occult forces.This is Dion Fortune's first novel, and it introduces a number of the occult themes that appear in her subsequent novels.This novel has the authority of someone who knows what she is writing about, and it is an exciting read.