Demon Forged: three aspects I'm loving + contest

Let me just say first: thanks to everybody who is not spoiling Demon Forged for me! I'm midway through right now, so thrilled with it, and so glad I don't know what will happen.

Thanks Dear Author:

"Summarizing the plot of Demon Forged beyond this point would require the revelation of spoilers essential to the story, spoilers that reveal the revolutionary nature of this book and its role in the Guardian series..."

Thanks KatieBabs:

"This is the only book I read this year where my mouth dropped in shock and my hands were shaking over the ending. Demon Forged is my number one book for 2009."

And thanks to all others. I am so psyched to not know! This will not be a post on that, since I'm only midway through, but rather three aspects of the book that I am really loving.

Aspect #1 that I'm loving: Intricately drawn characters - so damn satisfying!

There's the bit on page 13 where I first felt like I really grocked the characters. It's right after Irena and Alejandro have an argument. Irena accuses him of splitting hairs. He accuses her of clumping them all together too much. And Irena muses that this is "the difference between them: details. She refused to focus on them."

This is so satisfying to me as a reader. Detail orientation is such a small, mundane thing. It's the sort of thing HR people write on job descriptions in the classifieds, but I it's one of the many aspects of these characters that shine through everywhere and make you feel like you know them.

This nuance affects the way these characters interact with people, the way they approach their jobs. It affects clothes, and the way Irena doesn't make distinctions between good and bad demons. (They're all demons.) It's a kind of inflexibility, but also a kind of integrity.

Then, later on this page:

Irena preferred rough edges, even though they scraped and tore. But Alejandro, he was all sleek speed and elegance, from his words to his body. The leopard to her bear, the fox to her wolverine. Solitary predators who avoided one another, respecting too well the teeth and claws of the other--and when they couldn't keep apart, they ripped pieces from one another in passing.

There are places in the book where Alejandro is likened to a knife, Irena is a blunt weapon. Even her name for him: Olek, is a blunt version of the smooth Alejandro. All this stuff just holds throughout the book, but it also intensifies. Like this midbook passage below:

Dear God, how she amazed him. Irena could be so stubborn and so unwilling to see any view but her own narrow and unyielding one. And yet she was also this. Able to see the nuances of a person's soul--to know how someone thought, how they would react. Able to anticipate conflicts, and maneuver around them.

Always as blunt as a sledgehammer, but never as dull. Little wonder that she fascinated him.

Is anybody else noticing this? I can't get enough of this character stuff.

Aspect #2 Varying music of the language

Another aspect I'm vastly enjoying here is how, when the passages switch between character points of view, the language differs in a way that also deepens the characters, makes them more vivid.

For example, the passage above that begins with "Irena preferred rough edges" is in Irena's head, and the cadence of it is totally different than the passage that begins with "Dear God, how she amazed him," which is in Alejandro's head.

Irena's "voice" has smaller, blunter words, with less abstract and more concrete concepts--she talks about bears and foxes, he talks about nuances and maneuvers. There is also a difference in the arrangement of the words; Irena has speech tics like that bit: "But Alejandro, he was..." whereas Alejandro would say "But Alejandro was..." And Brook is so consistent with that! You don't have to specifically notice it as a reader for it to enrich your overall experience. But it sure is enriching.

Aspect #3: Hugeness of passion and panorama

The thing about these two is that they have known each other for centuries, and have a complicated history where their potentially great love was all but destroyed by a demon. And they've stayed away from each other, but now they're thrown together. Irena comes to Alejandro's home for the first time ever and:

He wanted to show his home to her, to watch her face as she looked at each room. He would tear it down and start over if he sensed even a hint of displeasure.

I just like the dramatic nature of that. It's a small thing, but it goes to all the drama here. He's been building and perfecting the place forever but he would tear it down for her! Their failed yet fiery and blood-soaked love spans centuries! Prophecies and the fate of the world swirl around them!

And, I am SO SO curious what happens next.

CONTEST: Okay, I happen to have an extra copy of this fine book. How do you win it? Tell me in the comments what kind of animal you might be likened to if you were in a novel. You have until Monday morning, 10 a.m. CST. And I will also throw in a See's chocolate sucker!!