Review: Devilishly Hot by Kathy Love

Short Summary: Small town girl, Annie Lou Riddle, is offered the job of a lifetime when asked to be the assistant for Finola White owner of HOT! magazine. What Annie doesn’t know is that the job comes with a steep price. Her soul! Nick Rossi is investigating HOT! magazine for the disappearance of 20 girls. All of them disappeared without any word to their family or friends. Finola, the demon and person responsible for the disappearance of the women, has decided she want Nick for her own and has instructed Annie to make it happen.

From the title, the cover and the blurb on the back I thought this book was going to be a fun, humorous yet quirky read. Devilishly Hot with a heart as the “o”? A cute couple smiling and leaning up against each other on the front? And the blurb saying “there is no boss more horrible, or more humorous…”? Yikes, how wrong I was. Devilishly Hot was kind of dark, depressing and not at all funny. I think there were attempts at humor made but they all just fell flat in the context of what was happening with the rest of the story. (Satan speaking)

“I’m already dealing with this lust demon I placed in the government. He’s gone rogue, utterly sex-craze, sleeping with anyone. Fortunately no one is paying too much attention. He is a government official, after all.”

Or

“As soon as Satan looked away, the goblins nearly dropped the mirror in their relief. But they didn’t. Luckily. A broken mirror would not please Satan. Even he was superstitious.”

There were several parts of this book I just didn’t enjoy. The relationship between Nick and Annie did not really work. Annie had a boyfriend she had been dating since high school and had who followed her from small town to big city. Annie fought her attraction to Nick not because of her boyfriend but because of her boss. I am not a big fan of cheating and Annie and Nick stepped too close to that line. In a predictable turn, Annie and Nick walk in on her boyfriend with another woman. It was so clichéd and obvious that I was a little irritated it even played out. Of course, immediately after that incident Annie is ready to give herself to Nick. She wants to feel good again. Meh. And so Nick and Annie develop. But they only develop so far because Annie is still terrified of Finola and the possible loss of her soul.

The storyline lacked overall explanation too. We don’t find out the how or why of the selling your soul business until 230+ pages. The whole time I was curious if it was a trick or if people know going in what they are doing. And what is the reason for the whole soul collecting bit? That we didn’t find out until the very end where Satan swoops in, fixes Annie’s contract thus freeing Annie and Nick to have a relationship, punishes Finola for all her human meddling and swoops back out. The climax was like 3 pages. It happened so fast if I blinked I would have missed it! It almost seemed like the ending was left open to have a second book with Finola in it. She was punished for what she had been doing, yet not punished.

In the end the book was just ok for me. It was a bit disjointed and not what I was expecting going in. I would probably give it a C-.

Favorite quote:

“Don’t say anything,” she whispered, “I want to be with you. I’ve wanted that from the very moment we met. And I’m really hoping you aren’t changing your mind about being with me.”

Rating: C-
Devilishly Hot by Kathy Love
November 1st 2011 by Brava
Paranormal Romance
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