Demon's Touch: A Paranormal Psychological Thriller

Written by Harper Shaw

Narrated by Hayden Bishop

When I called all men soul-sucking… I didn’t realize how literal that could be.

In a desperate attempt to get away from my ex, I moved to a new city.

Only to find the men here to be the same—overbearing, pushy, and just plain creepy.

Except, maybe I placed the blame on the wrong people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Publishing
• Release date: Jul 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781094459295

Harper Shaw

Harper Shaw is an emerging author of thrillers living in central Florida. Her hobbies include watching crime thrillers on TV. She watched Gone Girl and was hooked on writing thrillers except work and family always got in the way. Then she realized that if she spent an hour writing after dinner every night she’d have a book in no time. Nowadays she waits until her family goes to sleep to begin to write her psychological thrillers with twisty endings. She doesn’t let her kids read what she writes so as not to scar them for life.

Reviews for Demon's Touch

[Lori Yudiskas · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I gave up. Simply terrible. That's a few hours of my life I'll never get back,lol!

[Amanda Day · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Could not get into this book. I tried because I’d loved Harper shaws other books. This one was hard to get into because most of the conversation was all one sided without much dialogue. Gave it a few chapters but it just didn’t seem to go anywhere so I gave up.

[Autumn D Guidry · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The one-sided conversation at the end was so stupid. I have never in my life, until now, encountered any book that included a one-sided conversation unless that conversation was with themselves. Wth? I could almost get over that, but then there were so many other holes and things wrong with this book. I get she is a new author, but come on.... read a book....js

[Cheri Redmond · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

So dumb,don't waste your time, first half wasn't bad, then it went downhill fast

[Karen Chandler · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I loved the paranormal aspects, but it got a little gross at times. I loved that friendship prevailed.

[Christine Isham · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Awful and pointless. Not sure why I kept listening. I kept thinking it would make sense ... it never did.

[Mary Ellen Porter · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Is this a joke? The beginning had promise the it just turned weird. All I can say is scrotums and rats with filthy mouths. I don’t know what happened here. I liked other books by this author. Not sure I have any desire to read anything else by her.

[Casie Maggard · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Worst book I've ever read. It started OK but ended horribly.

[Untamed Lawson · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not one of the best, i didn't like the middle to ending as for me went totally left.

[Mari Del Rodriguez · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Ugh I wanted to like this book. It started ok but the middle to end was terrible.

[anthony campbell · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Super weird and left me with a lot of questions. Definitely made me feel uncomfortable listening but I think that’s the point.

[Cydia · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I'd give it 0 stars if I could. I'm all for paranormal, but this was a disaster. It was like switching to a whole new book halfway through.

[han · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

compared to her other books this is ridiculously bad. Sorry.

[Amy Grace Anderson · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Narration is awful. I’ve read three of her books this is my least preferred.

[Heather Peterson · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The ending was a little tough, but the metaphors of everything came through pretty loud and clear. Overall not terrible but not one of my favorites.

[sandra brown · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Better dialogue and a more believable premise. Would have helped

[Nicole Holm · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Had me till the end...gets pretty far fetched and gross in my opinion.

[Kimberly Alexander · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This book just went off the rails in my opinion..way off the rails

[Kristina TenEyck · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Awful, just God awful. Don’t waste your time on it

[Teri Wise · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This would be better classified as horror, which doesn’t interest me. Couldn’t finish.

[Bill Hair · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

2.75 Stars for me!

This was a clever story which takes several twists and turns all the way until the last 20 minutes... then it went off the rails for me.

The first half, I was at 4.5 Stars, which is in my top 5% of reviews. The author had fun with the characters and kept the suspense building without a lot of fluff.

The second half, the author wrote the character through the eyes of an angry feminist (not intended to insult feminist as the vast majority just want an equal playing field and to be treated with respect).

Example 1: The overweight male police officers essentially ignored her worries, gave her zero credibility and only saw her as a sex object. She was disgusted that they looked at her in a sexual or leering way. Next chapter, the MC and her bestie were ogling the hot bartender and talking about him in a sexual way. Double standard... What is the difference? Hot guy, OK for him to look... Plain or overweight guy, they are offended.

Example 2: If a guy is empathetic and understands feelings of PTSD from an abusive relationship, he is probably gay? Really? The H was written as a very nice guy who treated women with respect. There are plenty of us out there, I promise.

Example 3: The author goes on a rant against men during the last 15 minutes of the story. While there are plenty of a-holes out there, it is pretty evenly split amongst men and women now. I do agree with the author that many men believe that they must do the manual labor or see women as the more emotional of the human race. Typically, men are bigger and have more muscle mass and women tend to look at things with more emotion. We also have thousands of years of history through today where men took on manual labor. For me, I do it because I like doing some of it and other times it is something that my wife is loath to do. On strength, I was in the Marines and there were several women that could wipe the floor with me. Nothing but respect. My point is that many men offer to do things as a sign of respect and not because we think that we are better than them. Are there still horrible men out there... Absolutely and many of us guys hate how they make the rest of us look.

Yes this is my rant yet I do like this author and enjoy her style of bringing the characters to life.

[Jessica Burr Frickey · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I don't know if the author was trying something different by having the antagonist's voice only be heard by Sam (main character) but I don't feel like it worked. Did I miss something? Was there an error in the audiobook? I don't know but it didn't work for me.

[nicholas eger · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Yuk. What a waste of time. Reading the other reviews seems like they agree

[Jamie · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Not a well written story. I like other Harper Shaw works but this one isn't very good. It's like a radical feminist satire and had me legitimately laughing out loud at some parts that were just so ridiculous. The characters aren't likable and there's no growth. The story itself doesn't make much sense and things just happen out of nowhere for really no reason. As another person said, there might be missing audio for this as well as the narrator has a conversation with herself but we don't know what she's responding to at the end. I couldn't wait for it to be over.

[Ane Walter · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

It was ok writing, but while I enjoy paranormal, I really don’t appreciate zombie splat writing. Approx. half way through, it started becoming rediculous. A couple of chapters later I gave up.

[Tim · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

It’s garbage. Starts out okay and interesting- then goes wild with female chauvinism and unnecessary imagery - not unlike something from the mind of a middle schooler. I’d have been embarrassed to be the narrator.

[Lyndsey · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Started off promising and ended as if the author had found her hoarded stash of edibles.... you can't even call it a twist. More like a loss of plot.