Date From Hell by Gareth Vaughn: 6/10 Stars

 

In his desperation to find a date in time for the annual Helloween bash, minor-rank demon Kev summons a coworker he once hooked up with. But when the smoke and sulfur clears, it isn’t demon Ira standing in the ring, but a very perplexed, very human mortal named Archer.

Archer is cute, confused, and willing to consider going as Kev’s date … for a price. Turns out this isn’t the first time Archer’s met a demon, and he wants his soul back.

 

 

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Overall Rating: 6/10 stars

Matt’s Review: 3/5 Stars

I have mixed feelings about this one.

On the one hand, it’s quite a fun and irreverent almost-comedy. A demon accidentally summons a human instead of another demon, then goes along with said human to retrieve his soul. There’s quite a bit of funny worldbuilding and characterisation, from our trans hero being perpetually dressed in a pair of hideous boxers with winged cheeses on, to the soul depository being called the First Bank of Hell, and a veiled reference that they’ll probably get away with it if they do steal the soul because the Devil appreciates a good con. Plus, come on. The demon is called Kevin Mooney. There’s definitely some laughs to be had here.

On the other hand, it fell down for me where it tried to be serious about the relationship between the two characters. For 75% of the story, it’s just lust and fucking. Hell is just perpetually horny, and the entire attraction between the two for most of the book was Kev being turned on by Archer’s dominant attitude. (Oh, and as far as the sexual content goes? Big warning for dubcon. BIG warning.)

But then suddenly, boom. Archer loves him, Kev loves Archer (instead of just, you know, sex with Archer) and Archer is willing to risk destruction so Kevin can come back to Earth with him. And I wasn’t buying it for a minute. There wasn’t an emotional connection between these two at all, just a sexual one. For me, it would have been miles better had it stuck to funny. Trying to be romantic at the last second really, really didn’t work.

So yeah, bit of a mixed bag. But you definitely need to approach this one with a sense of humour, because otherwise it will definitely not be your thing!

Laura’s Review: 3/5 Stars

I’m going to go right ahead and say it: I didn’t like this one. And still I just gave it three stars. Why? Because I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be my thing even before I picked it up. This leans more towards erotica than towards romance, and to be completely honest I’m not much of an erotica reader. So me not liking this was very much a ME issue and I would feel wrong giving this book a lower rating.

I was intrigued enough but some of the plot and the vision of Hell this book gave us. It was fun, and I did like how much of a failure at being a demon Kev was. And a plot to get back someone’s soul and escape Hell? Sign me up! I’m pretty sure I would have loved this book if it’d been only that. As it stands, I read over the sex scenes as quickly as I could to get back to the plot.

I do feel like the ending was a bit rushed. That beginning of a relationship between Kev and Asher, I just hadn’t felt their connection before, and it seemed as if it came out of nowhere.

But if you like reading erotica and you want to have a bit of fun with demons, you’ll probably enjoy this one!

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