Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Hell on Earth" series book 3, 10 Aug 2008
In JK's third offering in this series, in which the seven deadly sins are personified and spend their time harvesting evil souls to face judgement in Hell, Duanuan (Duan) the incubus who has appeared significantly in the two previous books finally takes a lead role.
Charged by the King of Seduction (currently Pan) to corrupt a pure soul intended for Heaven in order to prove he is worthy to assume the title of Prince of Lust, Duan doesn't want the role or the assignment, but its accept the challenge or die. His target, Virginia Reed is not only still mourning the death of her husband two years after the event, she also happens to look like a mortal Duan knows; Jesse Harris, an ex-succubus named Jezebel who renounced her demon status to remain with the mortal she fell in love with (see "Hell's Belles" and "The Road to Hell"). Unfortunately Duan fails to realise he actually loves Jesse aka Jezebel too, instead justifying his attempts to seduce her away from her human lover as nothing more than his job.
The seduction of Virginia is a slow process; not only does Duan have to battle her belief she is somehow being unfaithful to her dead husband, he also has to face several other deadly sins trying to kill him for reasons unknown. During this period Duan unwillingly begins to feel emotions, unaware he is developing an emotional tie to Virginia and care for the welfare of her body and her soul. Yet Duan is a demon after all, and the master seducer finds himself succeeding and marking Virginia for Hell.
JK has a wonderful ability to make the most nefarious and infernal creatures of Hell likeable. Duan is ruled by lust, unable to remain faithful to any woman (or man) and goes about his merry way corrupting as many mortals as he can, yet settles well into the role of a hero. His relationship with Angel aka Feathers (the angel from "The Road to Hell") offers light comic relief as she reluctantly assumes the role of a seductress herself while Duan does his best to corrupt her as well as Virginia, despite his unacknowledged feelings for Jezebel. I can now only hope that JK intends further works in her "Hell on Earth" series; perhaps with Feathers taking a lead role?
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Solid paranormal romance with strong world-building and saucy nookie, 9 Aug 2008
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.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Incubus meets innocent, 17 Dec 2008
Jackie Kessler writes really well, and I mean REALLY well. There's something about the way that she puts together a story that makes it un-putdownable, even if the central character is hardly appealing. Certainly Daunuan, Prince of Lust, whose job is to seduce people and send their souls to the Pit, isn't exactly someone you'd want to take home to your mother. We met Daunuan in Kessler's previous books and it was rather hard to decide whether he was likeable or not in those; in this story we follow Daunuan as he undertakes a challenge to prove he's worth of the position of second in command to King Pan - he has to seduce a soul destined for heaven and without using any trickery.
Of course Pan has chosen a rather difficult subject for Daunuan's test - Virginia Reed is a shell of a woman, someone whose life appears over, but who is full of innate goodness. She also looks startlingly similar to Daun's lost succubus friend, Jezebel, heroine of the previous books and someone whom Daun can't quite get over. But Daun's challenge might be harder than he thinks - as he is trying to get on with his seduction he keeps finding various infernal creatures are trying to bump him off; that, and that Virginia might be introducing him to that worst of four-letter-words, love.
What makes this book is Kessler's excellent prose, her witty descriptions, great characters and the overall ambiguity between the hero and their infernal purposes. In some ways this book is a departure from the norm in that the ending isn't the traditional Happy Ever After that one might expect; however it's still a really enjoyable read and the world in which Kessler sets these stories is amusing in a slightly dark way.
Originally published for Curled Up With A Good Book © Helen Hancox 2008
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by Jackie Kessler
by Jackie Kessler
by Rachel Vincent
by Richelle Mead
by Richelle Mead
