Sabre Harper Demon Hunter Series, Book 1

Read October 27, 2025

Rating (3.5 stars)

Find it here (free in KU) https://a.co/d/1l7VJKr

A promising start to a paranormal detective series

Clocking in at little more than 2 hour’s read time, The Key of Sorrows packs a punch! Set in a version of London teeming with supernatural entities and a human police force ill-equipped to handle cases of a paranormal nature, Sabre Harper is a hero who shouldn’t be. Part angel and part demon he walks in both worlds, doing what he can to keep humanity safe and demon-kind from doing too much damage.

The London Sabre occupies is a dark place “where ghosts walk the streets and demons crawl from the cracks.” It gave me vibes of a hard-boiled noir detective meets Hellboy. There’s snark and wit that’s been pickled in desperation and whiskey. I love the premise! But there were a few warbles in continuity that, in a novella this brief, really stood out.

At the very end of chapter five, a character has a conversation with Sabre and Bone in which she actually shows Sabre a mythical artifact. Yet in the first sentences of chapter six its like none of that even took place and Sabre tells the woman he knows where the artifact is hidden (even though she just retrieved and showed it to him), before they spend the next chapter searching for its hiding place. Or the fact that they decide to split up, search three locations simultaneously… but proceed to these locations & search as a group. In the grand scheme, these things aren’t the end of the world and nothing another round of editing couldn’t resolve, so don’t let it discourage you from entering Sabre’s world. If these continuity issues were corrected this would get a solid 4 stars.

The attention paid to the mythos of angels and demons, as well as Christianity and a host of other religions, was intentional and appreciated, giving this fantasy tale a sense of grounding through themes we all know. This introductory story concludes with a satisfying ending, no cliffhanger, but leaves the door wide open for future adventures.