Jordan’s life as a bike courier is cut short during a routine delivery with a very un-routine car slamming into him. After several minutes in Hell (yes, that Hell), Jordan wakes up barely put back together again, physically and mentally. His friends do their best to try and get him back to normal, but how are you supposed to function with a job and relationships when every new life experience now feels like a copy of a copy of human life. Jordan agrees to go out with his friends, if only to shut them up, when he encounters Lillith. She seems a touch off, but their instant connection can’t be denied. After spending a room-destroying passionate night together, Jordan makes it his mission to search his town for Lillith. However, when a different woman tells him she’s Lillith, Jordan has to either believe Lillith’s claims that she’s a body hunting demon or run. He runs. What follows is a strange story of a human and an other-worldly entity trying to make it work in a world that wants to send Jordan back to Hell.
Devil Inside was a bit difficult for me to embrace as both a horror reader and a romance reader. I’m no stranger to the horror/romance genre, but the first half feels more like dedicated horror, before moving into romance, before moving back into horror. True, you get beautifully detailed scenes of a man and the demon he loves playing a form of inter-body tag at a museum, but you also get the truly horrifying realization that Lillith’s bounce from body to body is actually traumatic for those she’s inhabiting. It can be really hard to sell the romance aspect when you take half a second to think about, well, any of it. The book truly finds its way about halfway through, pieces finally clicking into place. Devil Inside is perfect if you like your horror omelet with a size of romance bacon.
Devil Inside is available August 11th from Harlequin Publishing.
