Line #50 Literature/DevilsAndThieves


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dt_final2jpg_1.jpeg]]
2
3	''Devils & Thieves'' is a 2017 fantasy novel by Jennifer Rush.
4
5	In the small town of Hawthorne, New York, exists a community of magical users known as the kindled. Jemmie Carmichael is one of them; however, she finds it hard to cast even a simple spell due to her extreme sensitivity to magic, which makes her feel sick even just being around a large group of other kindled. At the same time, she has a very troubled relationship with the leader of the local Kindled gang, Crowe, as well as a rocky relationship with her father.
6
7	All of this comes to a head when the annual Kindled festival rolls around, bringing other kindled gangs to Hawthorne, most of whom have a bone to pick with Crowe and his Devils's League... Soon, Jemmie is forced into the conflict, and must learn to use her innate powers to help her friends.
8
9	----
10	!!Tropes:
11
12	* TheAlcoholic: Jemmie drinks a ''lot'', and everyone around her is worried about her bad habit. Crowe even has to cut her off from the bar in his first scene, knowing she'd already had two drinks in the span of twenty minutes. It's a big step forward when she decides to go out without some alcohol.
13	* AloofBigBrother: Crowe, who does ''love'' his younger sister, but also doesn't spend a lot of time with her or Jemmie, preferring to focus on leading the Devils' League instead.
14	* BarrierWarrior: All ''locant'' users, such as Jemmie and her father Owen, have the innate ability to create invisible barriers. The strongest ones stay up until a ''locant'' user can undo them.
15	* BelligerentSexualTension: Jemmie and Crowe have feelings for each other, but they also act quite antagonistic to each other. They tend to flip-flop on whether or not they want to be nice to the other person, leading to a lot of bickering and tension, all the while not admitting their true feelings until the end.
16	* BettyAndVeronica: Jemmie is stuck between the TroubledButCute Crowe and NiceGuy Darek, and spends a good lot of the story struggling to figure out her feelings.
17	* BettyAndVeronicaSwitch: Jemmie thinks the TroubledButCute Crowe is a Veronica and the NiceGuy HairOfGoldHeartOfGold Darek is a Betty. [[spoiler: It turns out Darek is a ManipulativeBastard Yandere who is interested taking over the world]].
18	* BigBad: [[spoiler:Darek]] is the cause of all the bad events in the story, from Michael Medici's death in the backstory to the disappearance of several characters in the main story. The ending solution requires taking [[spoiler:him]] down.
19	* BigBrotherInstinct: Crowe may have a generally antagonistic relationship with his sister, Alex, but when the chips are down, he cares very much about keeping her safe. When she goes missing, he nearly starts a new gang-war just to find her.
20	* BitchInSheepsClothing: [[spoiler:Darek,]] who spends the almost entire book acting like a genuine sweetheart to Jemmie, before being revealed as the villain who hurt her friends and manipulated her.
21	* BlessedWithSuck: Jemmie's extreme magical sensitivity is unique and useful, giving her a powerful edge over others...if it weren't for the fact that just being around enough kindled makes her feel like passing out, and makes it almost impossible to even use her ''own'' magic.
22	* BloodMagic: Considered highly dangerous and forbidden, Blood Magic is nevertheless extremely powerful for the person who manages to use it. The most mild form is when two kindled with different magical abilities mix their blood, creating a bond that allows one to absorb power from the other, while the most infamous usage involves stealing blood from a user of each magic, in order to gain that ability. No matter which type is practiced, however, it is still considered illegal magic.
23	* CompellingVoice: ''Animus'' magic allows the user to control a person's actions just through their words. [[spoiler:Darek]] uses it in an effort to make Jemmie and Crowe kill each other, ordering that they must both stay perfectly still, or the one who moves will be murdered by the other. Despite their desperation and love for each other, they very nearly die, unable to control their own reflexes.
24	* AGodAmI: [[spoiler:Darek]] declares himself a god when he gets every kindled power.
25	* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: The sweet, harmless Darek is always mentioned as having blonde hair. It serves to contrast him from the dark-haired and mysterious Crowe, showing him to be the nice and tame option. [[spoiler:This is subverted; Darek turns out to be the villain, and an expert manipulator, who only ''seemed'' like a nice guy.]]
26	* HealingHands: ''Venemon'' magic is capable of being used to heal others of various maladies, from hangover symptoms to life-threatening wounds.
27	* HealItWithBlood: Despite BloodMagic being considered evil and dangerous, when used correctly it can be life-saving. Jemmie once mixes her blood with Crowe's to give him enough power to fight off a fatal curse, allowing him to use his own healing magic to save himself.
28	* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Michael Medici decided to stop the evil leader of a rival gang, named Henry Delacroix, from taking over the world with the use of evil BloodMagic, and from killing several innocent hostages in the process. Becoming enraged during the course of the fight, he used his powers to kill not only Delacroix, but the rest of his gang's officers, straight up ''eviscerating'' them. Seeing this occur in the name of vigilante justice made Owen Carmichael decide to join the Syndicate and prevent the Devils' League from doing any more harm.
29	* InnocentBlueEyes: Darek, Jemmie's kind-hearted friend, is shown as one of the more innocent and friendly characters in the story, with blue eyes to match. [[spoiler:This is subverted; Darek turns out to be the villain, and an expert manipulator, who only ''seemed'' like a nice guy.]]
30	* LikeFatherLikeSon:
31	** Owen hoped that Jemmie would turn out to be as powerful as him, so it would give them at least one trait in common; however, with her poor grasp on magic, she's more like her mother, who has kindled blood but can't use magic herself.
32	** Crowe is as temperamental and dark as his father was, leading Owen to believe that Jemmie shouldn't be spending any time with him, fearing that he'll turn out to be ''exactly'' like his father...such as committing murder in the name of justice.
33	** [[spoiler:Darek, son of the evil Henry Delacroix, has his same magical ability, manipulative nature, and desire to take over the world.]]
34	* MagicalSensoryEffect: Jemmie's extreme magical sensitivity allows her to both see and smell magic, even just as an aura surrounding other kindled. Each magical type has a different scent and color, and each user brings more variations; for example, ''Locant'' magic smells of mint, while ''Venemon'' magic smells like honey, but Crowe's ''venemon'' magic smells much muskier than his sister Alex's does.
35	* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: Michael Medici's death was believed by most to be the result of a simple motorcycle accident, something unfortunate but incidental. Crowe, however, is insistent that he was actually murdered by someone of a rival gang, someone with the ability to ''make'' him crash. [[spoiler:He's right; Darek killed him, and made it look like the result of a normal accident.]]
36	* {{Masquerade}}: The kindled do their best to hide from those without magic, known as drecks; there are laws forbidding the use of magic in public, for example.
37	* MasterOfIllusion: ''Inlusio'' magic makes others experience very realistic illusions. Uncle Flynn used it to make his house look like a wolf-filled forest, and [[spoiler:Darek]] used it to make Crowe see the dead bodies of his loved ones.
38	* {{Muggles}}: Called "drecks" in this universe, most of the world is made up of these ordinary people with no knowledge of magic. Due to her poor control of her powers, Jemmie admits she has considered just packing up and going to live in dreck society, where she'd at least feel average.
39	* NighInvulnerability: ''Mareta'' magic grants invincibility. Even Jemmie's mother, who was born unable to use magic, can't get sick just because of the ''mareta'' magic in her family tree.
40	* {{Seers}}: Old Lady Jane and other ''omnias'' users are able to see the future, with the most powerful ones even being able to see when the people around them will die through a single touch alone.
41	* SensoryOverload: Jemmie's magic sensitivity only leaves her feeling sick and overwhelmed when surrounded by other kindled, due to the overwhelming mixture of smells and the feeling of magic itself.
42	* SuperSenses:
43	** Hardy claims his ''invictus'' powers allowed him to hear Jemmie and Alex spying on the Devils' League meeting when nobody else could, and long before they knew they'd been caught.
44	** Jemmie has a heightened magic-sensitivity, allowing her to not only feel the magic around her, but to also smell it and see it. It mostly just makes her feel sick and dizzy.
45	* TakeOverTheWorld: Henry Delacroix [[spoiler:and his son, Darek]] wanted to be the most powerful kindled in the world, capable of taking over said world with little resistance after acquiring the use of all eleven known magical abilities.
46	* TakeThatKiss: Just a day after she and Crowe make-out, Jemmie caught him kissing Katrina at the festival. It was deliberately done right in front of her, and she took it as a harsh rejection of a possible relationship.
47	* TakingYouWithMe:
48	** Old Lady Jane tells the story of a little girl named Nora, who managed to defeat the Devil by using her magic to bind them together, and then dragging him into the ocean with her, where they both died.
49	** [[spoiler:Jemmie, who was fated to die in the final battle, was dying from Darek's attack. She decided to use BloodMagic at the last moment, taking his power away from him and binding them together, dragging them both into the Sable River.]]
50	* TroubledButCute: Crowe is always described by Jemmie as being ridiculously attractive, and he gets a lot of female attention, but he's also brooding and dangerous, a bad-boy with anger issues that runs a motorcycle gang.
51	* WeUsedToBeFriends: Owen Carmichael used to be very close to Michael Medici and Thom Flynn, who he even started the Devils' League with. Unfortunately, he later turned on them and joined a kindle enforcement agency known as the Syndicate, using his position to crack down on the very gang he helped create, and thus gained the ire of his former companions.
52	* {{Yandere}}: [[spoiler:Darek]] becomes one for Jemmie, becoming enraged that she loves [[spoiler:Crowe]] instead of him, and hurting both of them in the process of getting revenge, all while insisting he does, in fact, love Jemmie.

Context Literature / DevilsAndThieves