They say the devil has the best tunes. I say the devil is in all the best media. (Admittedly, I've just finished season 2 of Lucifer, which means I might be biased, since that was excellent.) But I do tend to have a soft spot for anything with the Devil in it. Which is why I picked this up.
Hannah Green has a perfectly normal life, right up until her parents split up, her father sends her to live with her Grandad for a little while, and she ends up helping the Devil win back control of Hell. Not bad for a nearly twelve year old.
The Devil is an impressively horrible person in this book, walking the fine line of being the master of evil, while still holding our support on his quest. There's a lot of that in this book, perhaps because it is seen through the eyes of a child.
But he's still only a side character, as this is mainly the story of Hannah and her family. Her grandfather is the Engineer, who has maintained the machine that gives the Devil his control over Hell, and he is worried not just for theological matters, but also familial. The family drama is not something I'm usually fond of, as I'm rather shallow and tend to need either robots or aliens, but this dove into some emotional depth that I became heavily invested in.
The main plot was also thrilling, and avoided the problem that this sort of high level celestial conflict can have, where you don't really care about angels and devils, by grounding it in Hannah's life. The actual villain was rather compelling, and the author has a neat trick of giving you background in sarcastic little side notes, that I constantly got a little kick out of.
It's a good work.
Highly recommended.
Tagged: Book Fantasy Angels and demons Novel Print