Urban Fantasy Insider’s Guide: the Nava Katz Series

"...a fun, funny, and unapologetically raunchy new urban fantasy series... a clever guilty pleasure at its best." - Fine Print

The mission: kill demons. The distraction: one hot-as-hell slayer. Welcome to urban fantasy’s funniest, spiciest, demon-hunting trial by fire.

Series Snapshot

The Nava Katz series (known more familiarly as THE UNLIKEABLE DEMON HUNTER books) are urban fantasy with a high-heat romantic arc, set in a modern version of Vancouver where magic and demons exist, but the public has no idea. A secret organization called the Brotherhood handles the demon problem and absolutely does not appreciate it when their carefully controlled system gets disrupted by one snarky, unwilling female.

If you like the Charley Davidson series by Darynda Jones for its pop-culture-laced snark and “please stop giving me more supernatural responsibilities” heroine, you’ll feel right at home with Nava. If you love the Night Huntress books by Jeaniene Frost for their dangerous alpha love interest and unapologetically high heat, the Nava/Rohan dynamic will probably hit your buttons.

Main Characters

Nava Katz starts the series at twenty, which is exactly old enough to know better and still do the thing anyway. When a dance injury in grade twelve killed her big dream, she dropped out of university, bounced through dead-end jobs, and settled into being the family disappointment while her twin brother, Ari, trained his whole life with the Brotherhood to become a chosen demon hunter.

Then Nava crashes his induction ceremony, the magic ring meant for him doesn’t fit, and it snaps onto her finger instead.

She didn’t ask for a destiny. She didn’t ask for lightning-based powers that fry anything that gets too close. She definitely didn’t ask to be the first female demon hunter in a secret brotherhood of men. But the magic chose her, and now she has to figure out how to survive in a world that would very much prefer she fail.

Nava copes the only way she knows how: with weaponized humor, relentless pop culture references, and a refusal to pretend she’s okay when she absolutely isn’t. Underneath the snark, she’s loyal, stubborn, and a lot less reckless than the Brotherhood assumes. Over the series, she goes from hot mess to genuine badass, not because she’s a Chosen One with instant skills, but because she works, learns, and refuses to stay in the box they built for her.

Rohan Mitra is the poor bastard assigned to mind her. He’s an ex-rockstar turned elite demon slayer with a past full of landmines and a very low tolerance for nonsense. Unfortunately for him, Nava is ninety-percent nonsense in a sports bra. He’s broody, competent, and used to being in control, which makes Nava the most aggravating thing that’s ever happened to his schedule. Their dynamic starts as “you are going to get us both killed” and very quickly slides into “you are going to get us both naked,” with a generous side of emotional baggage.

Ari Katz, Nava’s twin, is the kid who was supposed to get the magic ring. He’s the golden boy: trained, disciplined, and blindsided when the power goes to the sibling who didn’t prepare at all. Their relationship is one of my favorite threads in the series—equal parts loyalty, guilt, rivalry, hurt, and the slow re-building of something new when destiny doesn’t follow the training plan.

Around them is a Brotherhood team that slowly transforms from “who let her in?” to “she’s ours, touch her and die,” plus a complicated, devoted female friendship that eventually gets its own POV in the companion novel, LEONIE HENDRICKS: DEMON P.I.

What Each Book Delivers

Across the series, you get a mix of single-book demon-hunting mysteries and a bigger, ongoing arc involving Brotherhood politics, secret agendas, and the small matter of an apocalypse. Each book has its own case or mission, but the emotional and romantic threads run straight through.

As the series goes on, Nava’s competence grows. She gets better at using her magic, better at reading demon threats and political ones, and worse at pretending she doesn’t care about Rohan. The missions get bigger and messier, the secrets more dangerous, and the Brotherhood less shiny from the inside. By the time you reach the last book from Nava’s POV, The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Burn, she’s nobody’s reluctant sidekick. Nava is the one who takes the killing shot and decides what kind of world survives the fallout.

LEONIE HENDRICKS: DEMON P.I., the seventh book, shifts to her best friend’s point of view, letting you see Nava and Rohan from the outside as a functional, established couple while someone else deals with the latest supernatural crisis.

Tropes, Creatures, and Worldbuilding

If you like your tropes labeled, this series plays with a lot of big ones: the reluctant heroine who didn’t ask for powers; the “wrong sibling” chosen over the one who trained; the secret society of magical protectors; antagonistic-but-sparks-flying love interest; overprotective hero who doesn’t know how to talk about his feelings; found family; and the “hot mess turns into a competent badass” arc.

The world is full of demons and the hunters who kill them, with the public kept blissfully unaware. The Brotherhood insists they’re on the side of good, but having a council of powerful men running a secret war against hellspawn goes about as well as you’d expect. The demonology and magic pull from Jewish mythology—think names, lore, and flavor, not sermons. It’s fantasy first, with these elements as texture rather than message.

Nava’s magic is lightning-based and defensive, which suits a girl who’s spent most of her life zapping anyone who gets too close emotionally. The induction ring that chooses her is one of my favorite bits: a literal object of destiny that rewrites centuries of “how things are done” in a single, hilariously awkward ceremony.

Spice Level and Romance Journey

Let’s talk spice, because this is not a closed-door series. The heat is high from Book 1 and stays that way. When Nava and Rohan have sex, you’re in the room. Or the park. (Don’t say you weren’t warned.)

The romance itself is a slow emotional burn wrapped around fast physical chemistry. They start off antagonistic, attracted, and absolutely not on the same page about what this thing between them is. Over the first three books, they become partners in the field and in bed, even while they’re both stubbornly avoiding the word “love.”

If you want your urban fantasy to bring equal parts magic, murder, and making out, Nava’s got you.

Where to Go After Nava

If you get to the end of this urban fantasy series and want to stay in my particular brand of snarky, magical trouble, you’ve got options.

Want more demons? (And really, who doesn’t?) Bedeviled AF features supernatural operative Aviva Fleischer going for her professional dreams in the face of one dangerous infernal secret and a charming, ruthless vampire ex who’s crashed back into her life.

The Jezebel Files throws you into a version of Vancouver where magic is out in the open, with a heroine who’s just as mouthy as Nava and just as likely to poke a dangerous man in the ego. If you liked the mix of investigation, conspiracy, and banter in Nava’s world, The Jezebel Files is a natural next stop.

Meantime, binge the complete Nava Katz series here: https://deborahwildebooks.com/collections/nava-katz