I was supposed to be writing today. I came home from my other job, setlled down in front of my computer, checked the email… and gazed longingly at this.

"You know you want to read me. Come on, Nikki. You know you do."

My new book, the book I’d been hearing all those good things about.What? You haven’t heard of it?

Well then, here’s the blurb from Goodreads:

Fifteen-year-old Bridget Liu just wants to be left alone: by her overprotective mom, by the hunky son of the police officer who got her father killed, and by the eerie voices which she can suddenly and inexplicably hear. Turns out the voices are demons–the Biblical kind, not the Buffy kind–and Bridget possesses the rare ability to banish them.

San Francisco’s senior exorcist and his newly assigned partner from the Vatican enlist Bridget’s help with increasingly bizarre and dangerous cases of demonic possession. But when one of Bridget’s oldest friends turns up dead in a ritualistic sacrifice that mirrors her father’s murder, Bridget realizes she can’t trust anyone. An interview with her father’s murderer reveals a link between Bridget and the Emim: a race of part-demons intent on raising their forefathers to the earth in human form. Now Bridget must unlock the secret to the Emim’s plan before someone else close to her winds up dead, or worse–the human vessel for a Demon King.

It was supposed to be my Reward Read – the one I let myself devour after I finished the week’s word quota.

But it kept calling me.

The call of this book was stronger than chocolate.

Of course, I really NEEDED a good read – I’d been stressed to the limit by all the Texas wildfires, and the one that had broken out twice across the street over the weekend had made me pack and unpack my Most Precious Preciouses more than once. (Look for a vlog on that late this week.)

You know what happened. I started reading. But what you don’t know was that I couldn’t put the book down. It was un-put-downable. I kid you not, this book? AMAZING. It reminded me of Lisa DesRocher’s excellent Personal Demons a bit, but maybe more scary. It has everything: hot guys, a great, strong female main character (maybe I should hve put that before hot guys?), scary demonic possession stuff, and pacing to beat the band.

LOVED it. You need this book – go out and buy it. But how, you might ask, could this book have saved my whole neighborhood?*

I’m getting there.

My favorite reading chair is upstairs, in my bedroom, next to the window that overlooks the valley by my house. After I read a while in my office, near my computer, I got tired of the way Ms. SmartyPants Computer was staring at me, whispering tacky things about “word count failure” and “lazy procrastinators” and “reward books are the Devil,” so I gave up and went upstairs.

I was reading there, by the window. I happened to look up (probably to entreat the Heavens to allow me to write something this awesome) and saw a wisp of smoke out the window. And then, red flames.

Yep, the next door property was on fire again.

Poeple, if I had been downstairs, I would not have seen this. I would not have KNOWN to call the fire in. It’s entirely possible that Gretchen McNeil’s book, POSSESS, saved my home, my neighborhood… possibly my life.

So, seriously. But this book NOW. The next life it saves could be your own.

* Okay, truthfully? One other neighbor saw the smoke and called it in, so maybe we wouldn’t have all been left without homes. But you NEVER KNOW.