Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

Two more Author Talk videos. I forgot to put the Kessler up last week.

Dear Ms. Kessler:

I think The Road to Hell suffers from a mistaken identity. It is a book that would be better as a straight urban fantasy rather than trying to shoehorn into the romance genre. The ostensible conflict in this story is the female protagonist trying to maintain her relationship with her boyfriend and supposed true love, Paul Hamilton, a New York City vice cop. Problem is that Jesse’s body can’t stop responding to other men’s touches. Her stripping joint is shut down. She’s being tortured in different ways to come down to hell and save her former best friend who betrayed her. Everyone wants a piece of Jesse, particularly Hell where she escaped.

Writing a succubus turned human within the romance genre has it perils because if the construct is a couple (or a committed threesome), then one who plies her sex trade with glee has an inherent conflict with the genre construct. To that end, if the book wasn’t meant to be a romance and if it didn’t try so hard to sell the reader on the idea that Jesse, former demon and now …

Dear Ms. Kessler:

As you said when you sent me this book, hell is the new black and you must be glad that your book is released at the forefront of the paranormal romance craze to redeem demons and Hell. This is a first person story told by succubus turned mortal, Jezebel. She flees Hell after there was been a regime change. In order to avoid a fate worst than death, Jezebel turns into a mortal to avoid being sensed by demons. There is a big bounty on her head to the demon who can find her. Jezebel finds that the perfect occupation for a reformed succubus is stripping. She knows all about how to turn a man on and how to use her body to do it.

The plot focuses on Jezebel turning from demon to mortal, from being amoral to caring about others and the reason, of course, that she is fleeing hell after centuries of stealing men’s souls. This was the best part of the story. That and Jezebel’s frank enjoyment of the hedonistic pleasures of the world: from drinking coffee and eating chocolate to …