Lydia Schoch

Title:  The Occurrence at Boyd Boone’s House (The Demon Cleanser, #0.5)

Author: Nadi Abdi

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: June 11, 2025

Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary

Length: 38 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

The magician may go to prison, but beefing with a superpower is forever!!! Set months before the events in Power of the People and a couple years after the arrest and conviction of Demon Commander Boyd Boone, Lillas and her demon-hunting Triumvirate are called to Boone’s house to investigate tales of strange noises and sightings of people inside. Police have also called in help from the local magician family, the Drays. Whatever Boone was into may have been unbelievable, but it wasn’t impossible.

Demon hunters, demon knights, vampires, and vampire-hunting magicians have gathered here today to make sure nothing goes wrong. But with a mix like that, how could anything go right? This is the tale of how Lillas was banned from Boyd’s house after going off on her own, then turning on her own with a power no one knew she had. In her defense, she didn’t know what she was doing. Also in her defense, Boyd was doing a lot of things he had no business doing. Note, the conviction. They may have found where (some of) the bodies were buried, but murder wasn’t the only thing going on in here.

Lillas is a powerful human, made to hunt demons and those to consort with them. Boyd was one of her most powerful opps, and one of those who consorts with demons. He wasn’t home, but the monster still was. Like his ghost was hanging around. Note: he was still very much alive. (Not her idea.) They did tell her not to snoop. But she was the daughter of a detective. What were her other options? All of that to say, what happened that day may not have been foreseen, but could have been avoided had they listened when she said, “I don’t wanna go to that man’s house!” but slightly more explicitly. Peer pressure. Not even once!

Review:

Normal is a relative term.

Some of the most memorable scenes were the ones that focused on how interpersonal politics affected everything from how magic was used to how information was collected. That is to say, who one knew in this world and how strong their relationships were with each other was often just as or even more important than what anyone’s special powers were. This is something that can range from helpful to frustrating in real life, but no matter how it affected the characters it added a layer of reality to their struggles that I don’t see enough of in the fantasy genre. It struck me as much closer to the truth of what our world would be like if we really did have magical beings running around.

I had trouble keeping track of all of the characters because of how quickly they were introduced. As interested as I was in the storyline itself, this did make reading it more challenging it than I wished it could have been. If the plot had focused on fewer people and saved the rest of them to be introduced in book one of the series, I would have happily given it a higher rating as there were so many other things I enjoyed about these adventures.

The world building was complex and fascinating. Sometimes only a sentence or two was used to describe something, but those brief moments gave me the impression that they were barely skimming the surface of what this series had to offer. I had enough information to understand what was going on while still knowing there was plenty of ground to cover if I were to dive deeper in this universe. It’s hard to strike that balance in a short story, so kudos to the author for pulling it off!

The Occurrence at Boyd Boone’s House was action-packed.