Since it’s Halloween week, I thought I’d spotlight some of my favorite books with monsters, vampires, and other supernatural themes. As it’s Monday, and I’ve got a slight cold (just enough to make me crabby) I thought I’d start with a lighter offering.

Julie Kenner’s Demon Hunter books, which began with Carpe Demon are all about Kate: wife, mother, and secret demon hunter who has to balance raising a teenager, keeping her young son from her second marriage in baby clothes, helping her husband’s career, and, oh, yeah, killing demons in places like Wal-Mart and the school basement.

Along the way, she drags in a good friend, and has many adventures of both the comic and creepy sorts, with some great sale items picked up along the way.

If you’re tired of the protagonists in such books being teenagers and college students, and want to read about a horror heroine with chick-lit sensibilities, you must check these out.

 Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom

I picked up Carpe Demon while on a lengthy visit to a local Half Price Books with my husband and brother-in-law, and read half of it while we were there, but it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I ordered it from Amazon.com along with its sequel.

I was hooked at first by the tag line, about how the protagonist, Kate, was something like an adult (as in grown up, not as in XXX) version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but while the whole “California girl fights demons” think does make their stories seem similar, Kate is not not at all like Buffy. For one thing, Kate has a husband, two children, one of whom is a teenager, and a minivan. As well, her demon hunting doesn’t seem to be mystical calling, as much as a choice made when she was largely choiceless.

Still, the snappy dialogue, humor-laced action sequences, and fast-paced plot made this book an enjoyable and entertaining read, and I’m currently in the middle of the sequel.