TL;DR Review: Urban fantasy that strikes an excellent balance between cozy and epic. An insightful exploration of healing from parent-inflicted trauma.
Synopsis:
You inherited a house, but it has a minor demon problem…
Dagon Gunthersson—a powerful demon warrior and a renowned member of Hell’s nobility—stands accused of treason by his commander. His abrupt escape leads him to the last place he expects: the human world. Stuck in a decrepit manor haunted by lesser demons, Dagon masterminds a plan to return to Hell and take his revenge.
Josephine Gardiner’s sheltered life vanishes the moment she escapes her controlling parents. When she’s offered the opportunity to claim a mysterious manor, no heaping trash, nor the looming threat of eviction will stop her from building the home she’s always dreamt of. But the ghastly creatures scurrying in the shadows might.
While Heaven and Hell gamble with war, the manor inhabitants stand against greedy lawyers, hostile angels, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Can an arrogant demon and a strong-headed woman stop pretending they don’t care about each other and save the only home they’ve ever loved?
Full Review:
What happens when a prince of Hell gets teleported to Earth and winds up in an abandoned house about to be renovated by a whirlwind-in-a-bottle lawyer fleeing her parents? ROMANCE!
Easy Guide to Escape Hell surprised me with its opening. We meet Dagon Gunthersson, a warrior of Hell fighting a desperate battle against angels and barely surviving, only to find himself accused of treason and sentenced to death by his own father. Before the sword descends, he is whisked away by a magical spell cast by Rosier, a gargoyle who has carved out a small life for himself and other runaway demons in an abandoned mansion in a backwater town.
Only the mansion won’t be abandoned for long. Josephine Gardiner is running away from her cruel, emotionally abusive parents, and the best place to run from high-powered New York lawyers is the smallest town she can find. Especially if that town is home to a mansion she has inherited from some distant relative but can only keep if she renovates it.
With that premise, you know things are going to get interesting in a hurry. For all the demons try to keep her out—the “ghost” scenes were a blast!—they soon find themselves hosting a new human inhabitant in their home. And the adventure is on.
This story was a delight, with so much focus on the house, each of the adorable and charming demon characters and human neighbors, the renovation, pizza nights, snowstorms, hot chocolate, and everything else that makes cozy fantasy a treat.
But at the same time, there’s a surprisingly grand, epic-feeling storyline following a traitorous plot to invade and destroy Hell. One chapter you get characters sitting on the couch talking about feelings, the next you’re in the middle of a raging battle over Hellish cities and watching demons you’ve come to care for die brutally.
Somehow, the story balances between the two flavors wonderfully, and it gives the cozy beginning a truly epic and exhilarating ending.
The characters of Dagon and Josephine were easy to fall in love with. From the beginning, you see how both are deeply hurt by the cruelty, neglect, and abuse heaped on them by their parents. Both are struggling to overcome the burdens of their past, and though the scars run deep enough to keep them apart at first, you find yourself rooting for them to wind up together because you know that together they can find a path to healing.
The side characters of Michael, Carrion, Rosier, the kobolds, and all the others are so much fun to read. Every minute I spent in this story was pure delight, and I walked away wishing there would be more so I could dive back in for a second cozy-yet-epic helping.
This is unlike any cozy urban fantasy I’ve yet to read, and one I absolutely enjoyed from start to finish—in a single day!
If you like Good Omens, Small Miracles, or Legends and Lattes, you’re going to love Easy Guide to Escape Hell.
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