Romantic partnerships can be a mixed bag: Some days, your beloved seems to be an absolute angel; on others, your darling vexes you like the devil himself. A lucky few find their paramours to be utterly divine. Some recent Indie titles make these metaphors literal, limning passionate connections between mere mortals and entities heavenly or diabolical. While all three novels present beguiling possibilities—Who wouldn’t be tempted by the attentions of a lovely demoness, a devoted seraphim, or a down on his luck but still gorgeous deity?—readers will likely feel a renewed appreciation for their earthbound dating pool. (It’s dangerous to swipe left on a god, even one from a minor pantheon.)
In Samantha Joyce’s YA novel Not Today, Satan, teen protagonist Devica has a father from Hell—in fact, he runs the place, and he expects his fiery-tempered daughter to take over for him after he retires. Devica has her own ideas, as all adolescents do, but in the parlous pits of perdition, Satan makes the rules. Devica is motivated to break them when she meets Nate, an attractive, recently damned teen soul who insists he’s innocent of the charges that have subjected him to eternal torment. Devica, swayed by Nate’s plight (and good looks), leads the boy through an Underworld that bears more than a passing resemblance to Dante’s Inferno while in search of the exit. She wants him to show her around Los Angeles (where a cynic would observe that she might feel right at home). Our reviewer praises the author’s impish wordplay and the affecting dynamic between Devica and Nate, pronouncing the novel “as thrilling as it is delightful.”
Ruled by Fate, by Sam Withrow and Amelia Pinkis, offers a neat inversion of the previous entry. In this romantic tale, Brianna, a human woman, falls for a male angel: her guardian angel, to be precise, who once saved Brianna from shadowy creatures that attacked her and her mother. The angel (improbably named Cameron) returns years later, when demonic forces are again targeting Brianna, determined to steal the necklace that Cameron gave her and warned her to never remove. (A hunky blue-eyed angel who dispenses jewelry skirts gilding the lily.) The romance that blooms between the embattled ER nurse and the mystical paragon from Elysium is easy to predict but satisfyingly sweet, and our reviewer notes that “the relative wholesomeness of the relationship is effectively balanced by the truly horrifying—and sometimes seductive—beasts who crawl out of the underworld to complicate Brianna’s life.”
What beats an angelic boyfriend? One who’s a bona fide god. In AJ Whittier’s The God in 3B, Clarey, an insecure divorced woman, is understandably taken aback when an immortal, impossibly beautiful deity moves into her apartment complex (he’s got issues). Despite an excruciatingly embarrassing first meeting (Clarey is on a desperate hunt for diarrhea medication), Zack, a god exiled on Earth, is taken with his new neighbor’s curvy figure and endearing personality. The two slowly grow closer, ultimately engaging in a steamy affair. Our reviewer particularly enjoys the novel’s fantastical elements and asserts that “the charming relationship between Clarey and Zack makes for an engaging and fun read.” We swear to Zack.
Arthur Smith is an Indie editor.
