Fans of supernatural romps will enjoy Bond’s latest otherworldly adventure.
In the sequel to Not Your Average Hot Guy (2021), it’s once again up to bookish Callie and devilish Luke to avert disaster of biblical proportions—this time by locating the legendary Holy Grail.
It’s been a few weeks since Callie saved the world from the apocalypse with the help of her boyfriend, Luke—son and heir of Lucifer himself—but she’s far from used to her new normal. Balancing the mundanity of her daily responsibilities at the family escape room business with her jaunts to the underworld is proving difficult, especially now that Callie believes she’s finally found her life’s purpose: giving lost souls a second chance at redemption. Luke is sure Callie’s scheme to alter the rules of Hell won’t go over well with his father, but Lucifer agrees—with a catch. If Callie and Luke can save a soul of his choosing within three days, he’ll allow the experiment to go on. But no one ever said making a deal with the devil was easy. Sean Tattersall, Lucifer’s chosen wayward soul, is a charming swindler with one mission: to find the Holy Grail and bring about Heaven on Earth. As the trio—along with a cast of old friends and enemies—travels Europe in search of the Grail, the truth of Lucifer’s intentions comes to light, setting off a series of events that will change Callie’s and Luke’s lives for eternity. Bond’s humorous take on the trials of Heaven and Hell takes on a more complex tone in this sequel, with the addition of Arthurian legend and more in-depth characterization. A subplot of romantic angst between Luke and Callie is unnecessary, and the novel’s conclusion—no doubt the setup for a third book—feels too neatly wrapped.
Fans of supernatural romps will enjoy Bond’s latest otherworldly adventure.Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-2507-7176-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
Hokey plot, good fun.
A business executive becomes an unjustly wanted man.
Walter Nash attends his estranged father Tiberius’ funeral, where Ty’s Army buddy, Shock, rips into him for not being the kind of man the Vietnam vet Ty was. Instead, Nash is the successful head of acquisitions for Sybaritic Investments, where he earns a handsome paycheck that supports his wife, Judith, and his teenage daughter, Maggie. An FBI agent approaches Nash after the funeral and asks him to be a mole in his company, because the feds consider chief executive Rhett Temple “a criminal consorting with some very dangerous people.” It’s “a chance to be a hero,” the agent says, while admitting that Nash’s personal and financial risks are immense. Indeed, readers soon find Temple and a cohort standing over a fresh corpse and wondering what to do with it. Temple is not an especially talented executive, and he frets that his hated father, the chairman of the board, will eventually replace him with Nash. (Father-son relationships are not glorified in this tale.) Temple is cartoonishly rotten. He answers to a mysterious woman in Asia, whom he rightly fears. He kills. He beds various women including Judith, whom he tries to turn against Nash. The story’s dramatic turn follows Maggie’s kidnapping, where Nash is wrongly accused. Believing Nash’s innocence, Shock helps him change completely with intense exercise, bulking up and tattooing his body, and learning how to fight and kill. Eventually he looks nothing like the dweeb who’d once taken up tennis instead of football, much to Ty’s undying disgust. Finding the victim and the kidnappers becomes his sole mission. As a child watching his father hunt, Nash could never have killed a living thing. But with his old life over—now he will kill, and he will take any risks necessary. His transformation is implausible, though at least he’s not green like the Incredible Hulk. Loose ends abound by the end as he ignores a plea to “not get on that damn plane,” so a sequel is a necessity.
Hokey plot, good fun.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781538757987
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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