2025 paranormal fantasy, eighth of a nine-book series. We're gearing
up for the Big Confrontation! Time for a distraction.
If this weren't the penultimate book I'd have given up. Ever
since she found out what The Corporation was, Lorelei has been trying
to avoid being indebted to it, and it's become clear that the
organisation (somehow) controls and uses gods for its own purposes.
Now in an introductory scene she's given a one-off
call-for-help-then-we-own-you token. And ooh look, her lover's old
nemesis (the actual Lucifer) has shown up with Three Trials for her to
do.
So yeah it's kind of obvious that she will do the Trials, and in the
last one she will have to use the token. And sure enough she walks
straight into it. I don't demand total originality of plot but Lorelei
has done a good job of working out ways of getting out of impossible
situations before, and I'd like to have seen some of that ingenuity
here.
When she's on form, Lorelei thinks about what to do. When she's not,
she just reacts to the situation. And that's a lot of what's going on
here. I vaguely suppose I want her to prevail in the end, but that's
because of my memory of the Lorelei of the early books before
everything was power games, not because of the way she is now.
(When she first meets Lucifer "There was no glimmer of recognition
when I'd introduced myself" even though he's just strongly implied he
personally knows her parents.)
Obviously you shouldn't start here anyway, regardless of the quality
of the book: start at book 1. But this on its own would not encourage
me to keep going; it's under 80,000 words, but took me several days to
read simply because I lacked the enthusiasm to continue.