Evie's the beleaguered personal assistant to San Francisco's favorite superhero, Aveda Jupiter, a badass powerhouse who defeats demons on a regular basis whenever they open a little portal and try to sneak back into San Fran, possessing whatever mundane little object they first come into contact with, most recently as killer cupcakes!
Aveda AKA Annie has pretty much been rescuing Evie since they were kids and so Evie puts up with Aveda's diva tantrums. So does Lucy, Aveda's petite lesbian bodyguard; Nate, the handsome, brooding scientific brain of the Aveda Organization; and Scott, Evie and Aveda's other childhood friend, who dabbles in magic since the original demon attack. But no one gets it worse than Evie, although she is the one most adept at handling Aveda.
Maisy is an annoyingly perky local blogger who has set her sights on being Aveda's best buddy and always getting the scoop first, all the while dissing Aveda behind her back with Shasta, Maisy's lackey hanger-on. Maisy keeps Aveda in the social media spotlight, sometimes for the good, and sometimes for the bad. When Aveda suffers an injury to her ankle and is forced to rest and recuperate while she heals, Aveda pressures Evie to be her stand-in with a glamour spell by Scott to make her appearance mimic Aveda's... and that's when things go horribly wrong.
Evie's pretty much kept her fire powers under wraps since an unfortunate incident at a library years before nearly injured innocent people and almost got Evie herself nearly killed. Since then, she tries to remain emotionless, since emotions seem to set her ablaze, so to speak. This is a tall order since not only did her mother pass away, but her father went AWOL to "find himself" and she was left to raise her sassy and rebellious teen-aged sister Bea. It also means romance is out the picture for Evie, since emotions and all. When a demon portal opens up as she is pretending to be Aveda, her fire powers come into play and the Twitterverse blows up with "Aveda's" new power. The real Aveda resents the attention Evie is getting, even if it is directed towards Aveda herself, but she makes things more difficult with her petulant behavior and is spurred on by Bea, who likes to do things to annoy Evie and who really loves the new job Aveda has given her handling the social media aspect of her organization.
Before you know it, a weird type of demon has begin rearing its head and it seems there's a whole new "Big Bad" to contend with, one that's closer to them than Evie and Aveda could have ever imagined. Everyone will have to join forces if they have a hope of defeating this super villain who is creating zombies and is hell-bent on taking over the world.
Heroine Complex is a cute story, but I didn't necessarily connect with the characters, and to be honest, I found the character of Maisy to be so annoying as to not even want to read her dialogue. I get that she wants to be cute and perky, but injecting "gosh dang" into every sentence just really grated my nerves. Overall, I guess I prefer my sci-fi/fantasy/superhero tales to have a bit more punch and Heroine Complex just felt a little light and fluffy, like the sweeter side of superhero stories. I can't really see any guys reading this story, not that it is directed at a male audience anyway, but I can see teen girls enjoying it.
