Hotter Than Hell by Jackie Kessler
Aug. 9th, 2008 12:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
So whose soul do you have to damn to get a promotion around here?
Daunuan was never the ambitious type. There's so much to love about his job just the way it is - mnd-blowing sexual prowess, the power to seduce any human, excellent dental plan. But now Pan, the King of Lust, has offered to make Daun his right-hand incubus - a position other demons would give their left horn for. All he has to do is entice a soul destined for heaven into a damnable act of lust. Should take, oh, seven minutes, tops.
Then he meets his target, Virginia Reed. She's cute. Funny. Smart. Unfathomably resistant to his charms. He can't understand it. But Daun has centuries of seduction to his credit. He's the best there is. Sooner or later he'll transform this polar icecap of a female into a pool of molten desire, and every instinct tells him she'll be worth the effort.
Meanwhile, he has to deal with a plague of rogue demons Hell-bent on taking him down, sent by an unknown enemy with a serious grudge. And one other problem: the dawning realization that he's falling in love - that unholiest of four-letter words - with the woman he's about to doom for all eternity ...
This book is the third in a series. I haven't read HELL'S BELLES or THE ROAD TO HELL, but Kessler provided enough information in the text for me to understand what's happened.
Told by Daunuan in the first person, Kessler keeps a strong sense of pace and humour in the narrative, the story is tightly woven and there's a credibility to Daunaun's voice that makes it easy to buy into what's going on. The story itself is simple: Pan, the King of Lust wants to make Daunuan his Prince (a very coveted position). The catch is that to win the role, Daunuan must seduce Virginia Reed, a woman whose soul is bound for heaven and who is strangely resistant to Daunuan's advances. Inbetween trying to break through Virginia's resistance to him, Daunuan must defend himself from attacks made by representatives from the other sins (including Wrath and Greed) and find out who it is who wants him out of the way. To make matters worse, he finds himself starting to care for Virginia, something that no self-respecting Incubus should ever do.
I had some nitpicks. Most readers will understand why Virginia is able to resist Daunuan very early on and whilst this reason is well depicted, the nature of it made me eye-roll a couple of times (predominantly because Virginia's character is one that doesn't normally appeal to me). I found that one of the big twists was easy to guess, which robbed the 'reveal' moment of any tension and there's a chapter featuring Mozart that lacked any real sense of period for me and although it tied in with the narrative very neatly, the lack of historical credibility made it feel very flat. Finally, the end confrontation is a little too perfunctory for my taste and had a whiff of convenience in terms of the resolution.
Saying that, I found Kessler's world-building to be very solid and really liked the idea of the Deadly Sins being 'real' and having their own domains in hell and there's some nice discussion as to the nature of each sin that dovetails neatly into the narrative. There's also plenty of racy nookie, sly humour and it's an easy read with a nice set-up for the next book. All in all, it's a solid paranormal romance that should appeal to fans of the genre.
The Verdict:
Solid paranormal romance with strong world-building, an engaging narrative voice and enough saucy nookie action to make your knees tremble.
Daunuan was never the ambitious type. There's so much to love about his job just the way it is - mnd-blowing sexual prowess, the power to seduce any human, excellent dental plan. But now Pan, the King of Lust, has offered to make Daun his right-hand incubus - a position other demons would give their left horn for. All he has to do is entice a soul destined for heaven into a damnable act of lust. Should take, oh, seven minutes, tops.
Then he meets his target, Virginia Reed. She's cute. Funny. Smart. Unfathomably resistant to his charms. He can't understand it. But Daun has centuries of seduction to his credit. He's the best there is. Sooner or later he'll transform this polar icecap of a female into a pool of molten desire, and every instinct tells him she'll be worth the effort.
Meanwhile, he has to deal with a plague of rogue demons Hell-bent on taking him down, sent by an unknown enemy with a serious grudge. And one other problem: the dawning realization that he's falling in love - that unholiest of four-letter words - with the woman he's about to doom for all eternity ...
This book is the third in a series. I haven't read HELL'S BELLES or THE ROAD TO HELL, but Kessler provided enough information in the text for me to understand what's happened.
Told by Daunuan in the first person, Kessler keeps a strong sense of pace and humour in the narrative, the story is tightly woven and there's a credibility to Daunaun's voice that makes it easy to buy into what's going on. The story itself is simple: Pan, the King of Lust wants to make Daunuan his Prince (a very coveted position). The catch is that to win the role, Daunuan must seduce Virginia Reed, a woman whose soul is bound for heaven and who is strangely resistant to Daunuan's advances. Inbetween trying to break through Virginia's resistance to him, Daunuan must defend himself from attacks made by representatives from the other sins (including Wrath and Greed) and find out who it is who wants him out of the way. To make matters worse, he finds himself starting to care for Virginia, something that no self-respecting Incubus should ever do.
I had some nitpicks. Most readers will understand why Virginia is able to resist Daunuan very early on and whilst this reason is well depicted, the nature of it made me eye-roll a couple of times (predominantly because Virginia's character is one that doesn't normally appeal to me). I found that one of the big twists was easy to guess, which robbed the 'reveal' moment of any tension and there's a chapter featuring Mozart that lacked any real sense of period for me and although it tied in with the narrative very neatly, the lack of historical credibility made it feel very flat. Finally, the end confrontation is a little too perfunctory for my taste and had a whiff of convenience in terms of the resolution.
Saying that, I found Kessler's world-building to be very solid and really liked the idea of the Deadly Sins being 'real' and having their own domains in hell and there's some nice discussion as to the nature of each sin that dovetails neatly into the narrative. There's also plenty of racy nookie, sly humour and it's an easy read with a nice set-up for the next book. All in all, it's a solid paranormal romance that should appeal to fans of the genre.
The Verdict:
Solid paranormal romance with strong world-building, an engaging narrative voice and enough saucy nookie action to make your knees tremble.
