Full disclosure, I love Rachel Aaron – no, not personally, we’re not that close – I just love the way she approaches fiction. Her characters are vivid, unique, and relatable, even when they’re demons from hell. She knows how to make you care about a slacker dragon boi or an ambitious thief with equal intensity.
If you haven’t read either Nice Dragons Finish Last and the rest of the Heartstriker series, then what are you even doing with your life? The Legend of Eli Monpress is almost as good despite a few newbie author issues, and well worth a read for its own sake. Also, if you have any ambitions at all about writing, you have to read her 2,000 to 10,000 book on writing where she has some great tips on writing more efficiently.
That brings us to the current series, the Tear Down Heaven books that started with Hell for Hire. This sits comfortably between Heartstrikers and Eli Monpress in appeal. The writing is excellent, of course, and the concept is truly unique. In the first two volumes, Adrian Blackwood, a witch, hires a team of mercenary demons led by Bex to protect him from warlocks and the lackeys of Gilgamesh – the ancient king of Mesopotamia who has killed the gods and taken over Heaven. Adventure and romance ensue as the witch and the demon fight the forces of Gilgamesh and Adrian and Bex get close. Not too close, that’s not Rachel Aaron’s style. Just lovey-dovey, no hanky-panky.
This is not romantasy, folks, thank goodness.
By the time this book starts, the witch and the demon are more than a little friendly, but things are complicated, which often happens when you’re fighting the literal King of Heaven. You know what they say in D&D (or so I’ve been told, never actually played) “Never Split the Party.” Evidently, Bex and Adrian never played table-top RPGs either, because that’s exactly what they do, and all hell (pun intended) breaks loose.
I wish I could say I loved this book, but it was just not as compelling as it could have been. It suffers from mid-series sag and, while it does a lot of heavy lifting plot-wise, the book felt disconnected and wasn’t a lot of fun. It had a job to do, and it did it, but it wasn’t having a good time doing it, and so neither was I.
3 1/2 gotta-move-the-plot-along stars.
