I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the MEMOIRS OF A
HOUSEHOLD DEMON by Ben Logsdon Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!
About The Book:
Author: Ben Logsdon
Pub. Date: February 18, 2025
Publisher: Red Nova Books LLC
Formats: Paperback, eBook
Pages: 385
Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/MEMOIRS-OF-A-HOUSEHOLD-DEMON
Get a
signed paperback with swag at the Red Nova Bookstore!
Read the book for FREE with a Kindle Unlimited membership!
For a demonic spirit, Yuriel had
scored the perfect assignment—a cozy house in suburbia, a young drug addict
with an openness for possession, and all the marijuana brownies they could eat.
With a selfish human like Paul, temptation was easy. Too easy. Maybe that’s why
Yuriel found it so much more entertaining to spy on the Torres family next
door. Something about them and the love they shared kept him coming back for
more. Especially their precocious four-year-old daughter, Eva, and their
guardian angel, Sarai.
But when Yuriel’s obsessions bring tragedy to the family, he begins to discover
an emptiness in his soul he never knew was there, yearning for a shot to make
amends. Enlisting the help of Sarai and his angelic counterpart, Goldie, he
embarks on a mission to heal the grieving and earn his way back into Heaven by
doing the unthinkable—tempting Paul to do good. As old comrades and a hellish
past come back to haunt him, Yuriel must fight to unravel the question:
If angels can fall, why can’t demons rise?
Set in modern-day Southern California, Memoirs of a Household Demon is
a tale about redemption, overcoming weakness and loss, and finding the courage
to do what’s right. Its blend of action, humor and heart offers an insightful
look into human behavior and spirituality through the lens of an immortal
being.
Memoirs of a Household Demon is both a standalone story and the
first full-length novel in the Gray Spirits series. You do not
need to have read other works to enjoy this story, though the prequel
novella, Prelude of a Guardian Angel, is available now on Amazon
Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.
A Typical Morning Possession
The fifth circle of Hell wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Countless
tormented souls floundered across the muddy surface of the River Styx. They
scratched and kicked, drowning each other, their anguished wails echoing off
the greater cavern walls. A soothing atmosphere, I suppose, but the sheer
monotony of it all was my own ration of torture. Where was the thrill? The
conquest? This place was nothing compared to the evergreen chaos of the mortal
realm above.
“Hey, Yuriel!” A crooked figure approached me at the water’s edge, his
long, tattered cloak matching my own. He offered a cat o’ nine tails in his
claw, gesturing over his shoulder to a crowd of wandering humans in business
attire. “Did you wanna join the welcoming party?”
I glanced at the whip with a muted cringe, turning my gaze back to the sea
of writhing bodies. “Maybe next time. My mortal should be waking up soon, and I
don’t want to be late for work.”
“You sure? This newest batch of politicians just arrived from a plane
crash. They still think they’re in D.C.”
A worthy temptation, but I shrugged it off, slipping from my perch atop a
mound of skulls. “Give ’em a few extra lashes for me, will ya? I’m on the
clock.” I stretched out my hand and tore open a swirling portal of purple
flames. Its flickering glow sent shadows dancing across the surrounding
wasteland, beckoning me into the dark tunnel beyond.
Grinning farewell to my cohort, I launched myself headfirst into the void.
Wind whipped through my pitch-black robes and hair, excitement swelling within
me at the speck of light twinkling in the distance.
Earth, my own personal playground.
That’s how I always saw it, anyway. After all, back then, I was just a
regular demon. A devil. Or as we liked to be called, “celestially challenged.”
It was our job to compete with Heaven’s army of jack-booted nerds for influence
over humanity. While they enticed people to do good, we were supposed to
inspire…well…a different kind of good. The funner kind. True, it typically
ended with souls getting dragged to Inferno, but everything comes with a catch.
We had to tempt mortals despite existing on a plane they couldn’t see, hear or
touch. Any of us that weren’t up to snuff faced the shame of lesser tasks like
torturing timeshare salesmen or grooming hellhounds.
In my case, I actually enjoyed the challenge. It helped me escape the
boredom constantly threatening to drive me insane. At least it would if there
was any challenge to be had. My latest assignment was a slovenly man-child from
the twenty-first century. A guy by the name of Paul Meechum. Don’t get me
wrong, it was nice having someone with pretty much no inhibitions to speak of,
but I needed to feel something. Anything.
I finally emerged from the other end of the tunnel, drifting through a
second ring of purple fire into the morning light of Paul’s living room. The
portal sealed shut behind me, my boots touching down onto the ratty carpet as I
surveyed my domain.
The house was still littered with last night’s pizza boxes. Used underwear
and other sweat-stained laundry decorated the furniture. I’m sure the stench of
weed and body odor would’ve been unbearable had we demons been blessed with a
sense of smell. As expected, the junkie himself sat zombified on the couch,
tripping on his latest dose of opioids in a tank top and cargo shorts. I
strolled over and plopped down at his side, putting my feet up to watch the TV
when an all-too-familiar groan echoed from the kitchen behind us.
“Returning so soon, foul beast?”
Paul’s angel stormed into the living room, his eyes glowing brightly. “My
name is not Tinkerbell. Be thou gone, wretched fiend!” He raised a hand over
his head, materializing a gilded sword into his grasp. A flick of his wrist
ignited the blade with a pale white flame, its tip sizzling through the air as
he leveled it in my direction.
The two of us stared at each other, the angel trying his hardest to
intimidate, but between the flowing white robes and his perfectly braided gold
hair, I just couldn’t take him seriously.
“What the Heaven do you think you’re doing?” I laughed. “Put that thing
away, Blondie. We both know you can’t kill me any more than I can kill you.”
The angel lowered his blade with a sigh. “Such a cruel truth.”
He dissipated his weapon in a burst of light, the glow fading from his eyes
as he trudged over and sat on the other side of Paul. The human continued
giggling at the ceiling, completely unaware of our little confrontation.
“My name is not ‘Blondie’ either,” the angel added.
I casually stroked my goatee. “Does it look like I care? You’re one of
Daddy’s golden boys. That’s all I need to know. Besides, we’ve been at this for
twenty-five years and you’ve never bothered giving me your real name.”
“Hmph!” The angel stuck his nose in the air, folding his arms. “An evil cur
such as thee doth not deserve the honor of knowing.”
“Okay then, ‘Goldie’ it is,” I shrugged. “Look at us, squabbling like a
married couple in front of junior here. Might as well let him join the party…”
Goldie watched in horror as I levitated from my seat, centering myself
above our stupefied human. My spirit twisted and stretched into a tendril of
darkness, then plunged through the top of Paul’s head, spreading to fill his
appendages like fingers in a glove.
“Leave the mortal be!” Goldie cried. “Fight it, Paul! Resist the power of
the Dark One, I beseech thee!”
“Paul can’t hear you,” I said, curling his lips into a wicked grin. “He
never does. His consciousness is buried under a fog of poison.”
Goldie pounded his fist on the lumpy cushion beside him. “Why dost thou
find such pleasure in the corrupting of mortals? Is the spreading of misery
thine only joy?”
I marshaled the strength in Paul’s legs, lifting myself off the couch. His
muscles should’ve been simple enough to control, but the drugs in his system
left them sluggish and rubbery. “How many times have I told you, Goldilocks?
Your master denied my kind a chance at mortality. By casting us out, we’re
doomed to remain forever numb to the physical world. That’s why we make mortal
pleasures our own, temporary as they may be. What else can I say? We like to
live vicariously.”
“Thou art nothing more than a parasite,” Goldie hissed. “A creature devoid
of all hope and purpose. Thou blamest the Father for thy fallen state, but the
choice to rebel against Heaven was thine.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You think you’re better than me? You chose eons of
service to these selfish, snot-nosed humans. And for what? The promise that
you’d one day become one of them? That you’d live out your brief, insignificant
life with the very real chance that you’d fail and be claimed by Inferno? The
best you could hope for is to die bereft of any earthly pleasures and resume
your slave labor as an angel once again.”
Goldie furrowed his brow. “I would be welcomed back into Heaven. Back into
the Father’s presence.”
I stared at the angel, forcing a renewed smirk onto Paul’s face. “Is that
so? Don’t you have to be born first? Are you even sure that’s gonna happen?
You’ve been waiting for thousands of years. What makes you expect that’ll
change any time soon?”
“Silence.” Goldie looked away, his voice shaking with frustration.
“No, I think you’re going to stay right here…”
Goldie covered his ears. “I said silence!”
I leaned forward, bringing my face only inches from his. “Don’t you see?
This is your fate. To be forgotten like the rest of us. Despite all you’ve ever
done to fight against Hell, you’re already there.”
“ENOUGH!” Goldie sprang from the couch and erupted into a blinding white
light. The sheer force of his anger threw me backward against the wall,
knocking the wind from my borrowed lungs. “Release Paul at once or I’ll—”
“Or you’ll what? Burn my demonic spirit to ash? Send me back to Inferno
just to regenerate and return good as new? Futility aside, Paul’s heart is too
close to the darkness for you to overpower me. Even if you could, you’d have to
go through him to do it. Thing is, I don’t think you’ve got the guts. You
wouldn’t dare lay a finger on a poor innocent mortal, would you? Fortunately
for me, I actually enjoy the pain.” I clenched a fist and made Paul slug
himself square in the jaw.
The angel’s light quickly faded to reveal the most amusing wide-eyed stare.
Goldie winced, reaching out in supplication. “Stop that. Please.”
“What? You want more?” At this point, I had Paul going at it with both
fists. “Quit hitting myself! Quit hitting myself!”
Then, to my surprise, a new voice shouted over me. “Dude, what the fuzznut
are you doin’ over there?”
I froze mid-punch, realizing too late that Goldie and I weren’t alone. We
exchanged glances, peering down the hallway to find a young man around Paul’s
age trudging through the empty beer bottles.
James “Slim Jim” Peot. He wore a filthy bathrobe over his boxer briefs,
tangles of rusty brown hair peeking out from beneath his wool beanie. For some
annoying reason, Paul had a habit of letting this gangly bum sleep over in the
laundry room and eat all our food. It probably had something to do with Slim’s
virtually infinite supply of drugs and booze, but considering his strange lack
of both an angel and a demon, there was only one thing I knew for sure—he was a
lost cause.
“Oh, hey, Slim,” I said, sheepishly lowering my fists. “I was
just…um…waking up.” Trying to impersonate Paul during a possession was always
an issue for me. Good thing he was usually so wasted that nobody knew his real
personality in the first place.
“Interesting method you got there,” Slim replied, scratching his head. “Is
punching yourself some kind of new morning ritual?”
I nodded confidently. “Heck yeah. The doctor says, ‘a good punch a day
keeps the sleepies away.’ Really gets the blood pumpin’, you know? It’s great
for getting past a hangover.”
Goldie may have been invisible to Slim, but I could still see the angel
facepalm out of the corner of my eye.
“Well done,” I said, stifling a laugh.
Slim groaned on the floor. “Son of a—come on, Paul, how could you do this
to me?”
I shrugged. “Just trying to give some helpful medical advice, dude.”
“Nah, man, not that…” Slim reached under a pile of beer bottles and pulled
out a hand-rolled cigarette. “You left a perfectly good phatty on the ground,
brah!” He flopped onto his back, whipping a lighter from the pocket of his
robe. After sparking a quick flame, he put the joint to his lips and took a
nice long drag. “Acapulco Gold…and is that a hint of Sour Diesel I detect? Good
stuff.”
I tapped Paul’s foot, no longer amused by Slim Jim’s antics. “Hey, ‘brah,’
I’m glad you’re enjoying the vintage, but unless you’ve brought me something
fresh, I’m gonna need you to pack it up and—”
Slim threw his hand in the air to cut me off. “Say no more, dude. Ol’ Slim
Jim’s got ya covered.” He picked himself up and sauntered into the kitchen, his
recovered joint hanging from his lips. “You’re not feeling quite yourself right
now, are you, Paul? I can tell.”
“Y-you can?”
Slim paused to shoot me a knowing glance. “Of course, dude. You’ve got a
burnin’ case of the ‘hangries.’ But don’t worry. I brought just the thing.” He
reached under the counter, presenting a large glass cake pan covered in
aluminum foil. “Ta-da!”
I raised my hands in surrender. “Okay, you got me. What’s on the menu?” I
hobbled to the kitchen bar, pulling up a stool as Slim placed his offering in
front of me. He carefully peeled back the aluminum cover, revealing a neatly
sectioned grid of chocolatey brown squares. The mere scent of them was enough
to get Paul’s mouth watering. “Sweet Lucifer, are those—?”
Slim nodded with a chuckle. “That’s right, my dude. Behold my incredible,
edible pot brownies.”
“Oh, it’s go time.” I scooped up two brownies at once, greedily shoving
them into Paul’s gullet. As a demon, the sense of taste was an amazing
experience no matter what my host was eating, but the combination of weed and
fudgy goodness was almost more than I could bear. Every bite was pure ecstasy
and I made sure to let Goldie know. “Mmmmm, yes. That’s the stuff. Yes! More!”
Slim stared at me with eyes wide, clearly disturbed, yet pleased by the
reception of his culinary masterpiece. “So…I guess you like them?” He drummed
his fingers together, anxiously waiting to grab a brownie for himself. “You
mind if I…?” Slim tried to reach into the pan, recoiling in shock as I slapped
his hand away with a menacing glare.
“MINE,” I said in a deep demonic growl.
He retreated to the far end of the kitchen counter, trembling in dismay as
I continued to gorge. An animalistic urge had taken over Paul’s body, demanding
to be fed, driving me into a frenzy. It wasn’t until the pain of fullness hit
me that I finally stopped scarfing.
“Now can I have one?” Slim asked timidly.
I sat back and glanced down at the pan. Its only survivors were half a
brownie and some drool-coated crumbs. I let loose a reverberating belch, then
nodded with a smile. “Yes. Yes, you may.”
Slim reached out and snatched the half brownie, clutching it like a
frightened squirrel.
I peered at the clock above the oven. 8:46 AM.
Almost time for the weekly festivities next door. I knew it wasn’t the best
move to leave my human while he was awake. Under normal circumstances, it would
risk my angelic rival getting the upper hand on me, allowing him to counter my
influence without restraint. But Paul was far from normal. In minutes, I’d
already met his daily quota for gluttony and selfishness. How much good could
he get into with only a few hours to himself?
“How long will it last?”
I paused, cupping a hand to my pointy ear. “Come again?”
“This game thou playeth. Toying with the souls of others. How long before
victory loses its savor? What happens when the last drop of satisfaction
evaporates from thy tongue?”
The question gnawed at me for a moment, finally prompting a mischievous
grin. “I guess I’ll simply have to find a new game.”
I turned to get one last look at the humans before heading out. Slim Jim
was hunched over the remains of his cake pan, licking up the crumbs while Paul
stared at him in dazed confusion. Neither had the slightest clue as to what had
just happened, oblivious to my ultimate form of dine and dash. Even now, I
think back on that morning with the most fervent affection. My only care in the
world was the next good time as I passed through the nearest wall into the
front yard.
About Ben Logsdon:
Ben Logsdon
grew up in Yucaipa, California, where he learned the subtle charm of small
towns and nerd culture. He’s been a saxophone player, a driving instructor, a
sci-fi connoisseur, a mechanical engineer and also a lover of cocktail shrimp.
After serving a Christian mission to the country of Panama, he picked up
Spanish and developed a penchant for storytelling. Since then, he’s started a
writing platform (Red Nova Books, @rednovabooks) and authored multiple books in
the genres of urban fantasy and science fiction. Ben enjoys playing tennis,
watching anime and keeping up with the latest video games. If he isn’t spending
time with his wife and three kids, he’s probably out back pitching ideas to his
adopted Calico cat.
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Giveaway Details:
1 winner
will receive a signed finished copy of MEMOIRS OF A HOUSEHOLD DEMON & swag
in a book box, US Only.
Ends March 11th, midnight EST.
a Rafflecopter giveawayTour Schedule:
Week One:
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2/24/2025 |
Excerpt/IG Post |
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2/24/2025 |
Interview/IG Post |
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2/25/2025 |
Excerpt/IG Post |
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2/25/2025 |
Excerpt/IG Post |
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2/26/2025 |
Excerpt/IG Post |
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2/26/2025 |
Excerpt/IG Post |
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2/27/2025 |
Excerpt/IG Post |
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2/27/2025 |
IG Review |
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2/28/2025 |
Review/IG Post |
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2/28/2025 |
Review/IG Post |
Week Two:
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3/3/2025 |
IG Review/TikTok Post |
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3/3/2025 |
Review/IG Post |
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3/4/2025 |
Review/IG Post |
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3/4/2025 |
IG Review/TikTok Post |
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3/5/2025 |
Review/IG Post |
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3/5/2025 |
Review/IG Post |
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3/6/2025 |
Review/IG Post |
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3/6/2025 |
IG Review/TikTok Post |
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3/7/2025 |
IG Review |
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3/7/2025 |
IG Review/LFL Drop Pic/TikTok Post |
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