Hotter Than Hell

Hotter Than Hell, by Jackie Kessler. Kensington, August 2008.

Meet Daunuan--an incubus in the employ of Hell (or Pan, the Lord of Lust, to be exact). Don is still pining after Jezebel, the succubus heroine of the first two books in Kessler's "Hell On Earth" series, who decides to make an unexpected career change in The Road To Hell. Now, Don is about to be promoted to Pan's right-hand demon, but first he has to pass a test: he must seduce a mortal whose soul is bound for Heaven. Seems easy. Right.

Kessler creates a vivid world of angels, demons, and competing deities, and Don is immediately engaging as an incubus with a certain sense of style. I like that all the cardinal sins are not just embodied by creatures, but also represent particular psychic or affective camps--Envy, Lust, Wrath, etc., with each claiming to subsume the others. Almost like competing infernal corporations. As a servant of Lust, Don has a kind of moral flexibility that makes him interesting. He has an impressive range of erotic conquests, including a famous composer, and it's nice to know that incubi are up for a little man-on-man action. This time around, he's only got eyes for Virginia, his 'mark,' who he may be falling in love with. If demons could love.

At times, Don seemed to be inflating his own reputation. He has a highly inventive vocabulary for describing his own erotic activities, and I was surprised to learn that all women smell like a pumpkin spice latte when they're extremely turned on. Sometimes, the salacious puns got on my nerves, but most of them were funny. I think Kessler walks a fine and interesting line between serving up hot sex scenes and actually deconstructing sexuality as it might be seen by a millenia-old demon like Don. Maybe after enough centuries, it's all just a bunch of interesting smells, with fear being the most tantalizing. Sometimes Don comes off as artificially macho, but then again, that's probably how an incubus would act. Even though many of the women he 'seduces' are bound for hell in the first place, the lavishness and violence with which he punishes them sexually may have come across as a bit disturbing from a male author. In that sense, I think Kessler is able to do a lot of interesting unpacking of sexuality and desire itself without letting the story become mechanical or moralizing.

Hotter Than Hell is one of those books that seems simple and entertaining, but quickly gathers density and fascination as the story progresses. Stick with it through the first few outrageous scenes, and the story deepens nicely. By the end, you may even wish that Don could pay you a visit. Then you'll turn on all the lights in your apartment, eat some ice cream, and try not to think about how scary that last thought was.

Incubi. They (Don't) Screw Around. Buy it from Amazon.