Somewhere out in the desert beyond the sand and the cactus lies a doorway that is waiting for a young poet named Stefan Powell to give it entry, to make it complete enough to form a union between our world and that of the demons. The Nightworld is a terrible place full of torture and pain, for years it has stolen away young men and women with special knowledge of the arcane and the subtlest desire to know the dark that waits beyond out own world. Now after years of waiting the Nightworld will use Stefan to gain a hold on our world, to give it new power and access to all we hold sacred.
Stefan is a man overcome by the death of his mother and the darkness that dwells within him. Living his day to day life he can't help but feel alone in the small town where he's found himself working bit by bit to complete his book of demonic poetry and hoping that something will come along to alleviate his loneliness.
One night when he goes out into the desert to be alone with his thoughts and search for inspiration Stefan instead comes face to face with a doorway. A terrible sight comes to him from inside of it and there reaching from its horrible depths is the arm of a stranger who pleads for rescue.
At first he thinks its all a dream one like many he's had before and gone on to write about but then he meets Breckin ( the man he's saved) and the strange truth of his existence is revealed to him. As the days move on more and more strange people come into Stefan's life and he's forced to take action he'd never thought he'd face in his everyday life. Again and again the people he loves come under threat, over and over his own life is threatened as he begins to see what his future holds. With the aid of his friend Caitlin, lover Breckin and soon after others who become entangled in the web of his fate Stefan must face the Nightworld and stop it from freeing God Damia into our own.
Wolter does a great job of conveying Stefan's emotions and the overwhelming darkness of the Nightworld that comes to haunt him. Each of the many players in this novel has its own face and character changing the events of the story and indeed the outcome we expect again and again as we move along. Here there are many demons both real and imagined (in fact many of them are the demons that live within us at every waking moment), and the characters plagued by these creatures have their own battles to face before they can hope to affect the coming battle with the Nightworld.I had a lot of fun reading this book and hope to read more of Wolter's books in the future.