Demonata #1, The: Lord Loss

Grubbs Grady is an ordinary Irish teenager until he comes home and finds his family slaughtered. The demon who killed them, Lord Loss, is still in the house. Nobody believes his account, and Grubbs ends up in an institution.

His eccentric uncle Dervish eventually gets him out and tells him the truth. Demons exist, and the Grady bloodline carries an ancient curse. The massacre was a product of that curse, not a random act.

Now the curse is surfacing in someone close to Grubbs. To halt it, he has to accept a wager from Lord Loss himself: a supernatural game of chess in which Grubbs must win three games out of five. While he plays, Dervish has to hold off the demon's monstrous familiars.

The book is first-person, present tense, and it is the first in the Demonata series. It is dark horror aimed at younger readers, not light fantasy. It opens with a brutal family murder, moves through Grubbs's psychological trauma, and builds steadily toward a tense final contest. Losing the match costs far more than a game.