Kate needs a job, badly, after her uncle’s company folded
and she was forced to move back in with her judgmental parents. Even as a
temp, getting a job isn’t easy – she has an unfortunate habit of speaking her
mind.
But never did she think she’d be working for Hell – big
corporate, everything she despises. And that would be in a normal workplace –
but what about when your boss, Thomas, has actually sold his soul?
Of course, he wants it back – and he also wants Kate,
much as he tries to focus on the business at hand. The question is whether he
can live with the choices he has to make to get his soul back – and how deeply
Kate is going to get enmeshed in these infernal affairs.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect to love this book. I
thought this was a book with another corporation that was secretly a front for
hell. I thought we were going to get another rich billionaire who is cruel and
awful and mean but in would come the spunky manic pixie dream girl who would
melt his heart and then everything would be hearts and flowers. I expected to
hate it.
I was gleefully, wonderfully, blissfully wrong.
The whole concept of the book is one I haven’t come
across before – Thomas trying to wriggle out of a contract he signed to sell
his soul. He’s a really fascinating and surprisingly deep character that goes way
beyond “oh he’s so rich and hot and rich and hot and hot and sexy and hot” we
often see heroes described as. Yes he is hot, this is established early and
then… not mentioned. Maggie’s attraction and shirtless pictures of him are
allowed to speak volumes. Of course he’s hot, he wouldn’t appear shirtless in a
glossy magazine if he weren’t, but that doesn’t mean every other chapter we
need to describe every sculpted curve of abdominal muscles; so the book doesn’t.
It was refreshing – Kate’s sexual attraction to Thomas was made clear and his
appeal was maintained without devolving into the repetitive description that is
so common. This allowed room for what really makes Thomas a meaty character –
not just his sad tortured past (which is somewhat a requirement) but the issues
he currently faces: the challenge of being sufficiently ruthless to actually
get the job done. He has to kill people – and not only does he have to kill
them, he has to be cruel to even get the names; as Yagi tells him repeatedly,
if he’s not willing to be ruthless, to do anything, to risk anything to
sacrifice anything how can he win against someone who is more than willing to
do all of the above.
