Urban Fantasy Insider’s Guide: The Bedeviled AF Series

"Omg I can't tell you how much I love this series 😍!! The characters are ever growing and becoming like friends you never wanna lose and yet I can't wait to read the next book!!! The adventures and dangers are around every corner!! Loving it🥰"

She’s just a demon, standing in front of a vampire, trying not to punch him.

Series Snapshot

The Bedeviled AF books follow Aviva Fleischer, a half-demon operative working for the Maccabees, a supernatural law-enforcement organization. She’s climbing the ranks one arrest at a time, determined to snag a promotion on the strength of her work ethic, sharp instincts, and ironclad commitment to doing things by the book.

There’s just one tiny complication: she’s hiding her demon heritage.

In a world where vampires enjoy rock star status thanks to a decades-old PR campaign, demons are the monsters everyone still agrees to hate. If Avi’s secret ever comes out, she’s not just in danger of losing her job—she could end up locked away, and her mother (who happens to run the Vancouver Maccabee chapter) would go down with her.

So when she’s ordered to partner on a major case with a wildcard agent who can blow up her life in a completely different way, Avi is… not thrilled. That agent is Ezra Cardoso, the only naturally born vampire in existence, infamous assassin son of a vampire mob boss, and the ex who broke her heart six years ago.

If you love Darynda Jones’ Charley Davidson for the blend of supernaturally powered professional heroine, snark, and complicated love interest, and Chloe Neill’s Chicagoland Vampires for its vampire politics, team dynamic, and “work + romance” tension, Bedeviled AF lives squarely in that lane—just with a demon heroine who’s one bad day away from lighting her entire life on fire.

Main Characters

Aviva “Avi” Fleischer is thirty when the series opens. On paper, she’s the model Maccabee operative: competent, professional, dedicated, and relentlessly focused on earning her promotion. She believes in the work her organization does and in her own ability to be the perfect example of what a supernatural cop should be.

What no one knows—except one infuriating vampire—is that Avi is half-demon.

Her demon side manifests physically when it slips the leash: horns, a clawed left hand, scaled skin, and toxic green eyes. It also comes with terrifying strength and speed. Avi has spent her whole life being taught by her mother that those parts of her are dangerous and must be suppressed. She’s internalized that message so deeply that her long-term plan is to build an impeccable record, prove herself as the best Maccabee they’ve got, and only then come out, hoping her track record will matter more than the prejudice.

Ezra Cardoso is the last person she wants to see again. Publicly, he’s the Crimson Prince—his father’s assassin—and the Prime Playboy, swanning around as a jet-setting party boy. Privately, he’s working as a covert agent for the Maccabees.

Six years before Book 1, Avi trusted him enough to share her demon secret. The next morning, he broke up with her and walked away.

Now they’re forced together on a big, career-defining case: track a bizarre string of murders, work as a team, and don’t kill each other in the process. Avi needs the promotion. Ezra needs the access. Neither of them needs the chemistry that clearly hasn’t gone anywhere.

Their world is rounded out by Avi’s operative team, her best human and vampire friends, and her mother, who is not only her boss as director of the Maccabees, but also a walking knot of personal and professional expectations Avi can’t afford to disappoint.

What Each Book Delivers

Each Bedeviled AF book gives you a supernatural mystery—murders, conspiracies, high-stakes threats that could explode across the supernatural community—wrapped in Avi’s ongoing struggle to balance her identity, her career, and her extremely unresolved feelings for Ezra.

In Big Demon Energy, Book 1, Avi is laser-focused on her promotion when she’s ordered to partner with Ezra on a serial killer case. She has to juggle her fury at being thrown back together with her ex, her determination to prove herself, and the increasingly obvious fact that this killer has their sights set on her team. She can’t afford to lose control, but playing nice may not be enough to keep anyone alive.

As the series continues, both the external and internal stakes climb. The cases pull Avi deeper into vampire power plays and demon secrets. Her demon side becomes harder to suppress as she leans into its power to save people. The cost of staying closeted—professionally, magically, emotionally—goes up, and the question of who she can trust, and with what, never really goes away.

Tropes, Creatures, and Worldbuilding

Bedeviled AF is built around a set of really chewy tropes: second-chance romance with a vampire ex who broke your heart, forced partnership on a case, secret identity with a coming-out arc, “mom is also your terrifying boss,” found family within a supernatural law-enforcement team, and a heroine whose power literally grows as she accepts herself.

Ezra’s status as the only born vampire in existence, son of a mobbed-up patriarch, gives you all the “royal house / mafia heir” dynamics you’d expect: complicated loyalty, hidden agendas, and a very fine line between asset and liability. The fact that he’s also a Maccabee asset deepens that tension—he’s walking a tightrope between two power structures that would both happily burn Avi if it served their ends.

Through all of this, the tone stays very much in the Darynda Jones / Chicagoland Vampires space: snarky, fast-paced, and character-forward. Bad things happen. But there’s always a joke edged in sharp enough to cut through the angst.

Spice Level and Romance Journey

Romance-wise, this is a true second-chance arc with a staggered burn. In Book 1, there’s a lot of tension and zero sex. The focus is on forced proximity, unresolved hurt, and the uncomfortable realization that neither of them is as over the other as they’d like to be.

From Book 2 onward, the series goes full “snarky spicy.” Avi and Ezra resume a physical relationship before they’ve sorted out their emotional mess. They fall back into bed while still circling all the lies, omissions, and secrets that broke them in the first place.

If you like banter, kissing-while-arguing, and the kind of chemistry that refuses to wait for perfect emotional timing, this one’s for you.

Where to Go After Bedeviled AF

Once you finish Avi and Ezra’s story and want more of my particular blend of supernatural stakes and romance with bite, there are a few easy next reads.

The Nava Katz series gives you another snarky heroine in a very different situation: she’s the wrong twin chosen by magic, drafted into a secret demon-hunting brotherhood, and stuck with a broody ex-rockstar trainer she has no intention of obeying. It’s high-heat from Book 1, with a big focus on found family and personal growth.

The Magic After Midlife books hand the reins to a forty-something single mom who’s done pretending she doesn’t have magic. If you liked Avi’s competence and gallows humor but want midlife fun from a heroine with no effs to give, Miri’s supernatural fixer adventures, shadow magic, and grumpy wolf shifter will scratch that itch.

Ready for a demon operative to stop hiding what she is, solve some very messy supernatural crimes, and make truly questionable choices about her vampire ex? Read the Bedeviled AF series now: https://www.deborahwildebooks.com/collections/bedeviled-af