Damn Him to Hell by Jamie Quaid

Damn Him to Hell
Author: Jaime Quaid
Series: Saturn's Daughter #2
Published by: Pocket Books
Publication Date: June 25, 2013
Format: eARC
Pages: 358
Source: Publisher

Tina Clancy is adapting to her new life as one of Saturn’s Daughters while living in the toxic part of Baltimore known as The Zone, and occasionally acting as a champion of the downtrodden, the weird, the innocent...and the sometimes not-so-innocent.

Just when she finally lands a real law job, the Zone is blasted by poisonous gas and her sometimes-boyfriend starts receiving visitors from Hell. He’s none too pleased about that, or in Tina having sent his granny to Hell in his place. For that matter, neither is granny…

Damn Him to Hell is the second book in the Saturn’s Daughter series. I read the first book, Boyfriend from Hell, last year and liked it. I wasn’t over the moon about it, but I thought it was a pretty good start to a new urban fantasy series. So I was anxious to read this one to see if it was going to completely win me over. I did like it more than the first, but it’s still not a full out love yet. I do, however, love the cover!

Boyfriend from Hell picks up not too long after Damn Him to Hell left off, and the action starts almost immediately. I was glad that I had notes from the last book to refresh my memory for certain details, but the characters were fairly easy to remember. So they obviously left an impact since I’m not great at remembering characters names/personalities.

Tina is finally a lawyer, and boy, she doesn’t let you forget it. More on that later, though. She’s still adjusting to her new abilities of wielding justice, but this kind of justice goes way beyond anything that transpires in a courtroom. She has the ability to send the bad guys to hell, but who’s actually evil and who’s not isn’t always black and white. And there are consequences if she rules wrong. I really like this power/ability she has, and the fact that she has to fully weigh the good and bad (my astrological sign is the scales after all).

I am liking Tina’s personality more and more, too. She has a temper and can kick some butt, but she always looks at things logically. Plus, she has a snarky sense of humor I enjoy. She can definitely hold her own with the guys, especially hunky Andre. I love that he’s this total badass that no one messes with, but Tina doesn’t back down from him. It’s kind of hot. I’m pretty sure he thinks so too. I love all the banter and teasing filled with sexual tension that goes on between these two. Even though they have super hot chemistry at times, there’s still no hanky panky or romance going on in this series yet. Which is perfectly fine with me.

In Boyfriend from Hell, it incorporates the community of the Zone a lot more. I really like the motley crew of misfits that live there, all with their own quirks. They’re like a large family. They may fight amongst themselves, but they unite against outsiders who mess with them, especially when the ACME Plant starts gassing them and stealing the knocked out victims. But this time they’re dealing with something far more sinister than an unethical, power hungry corporation. The Zone itself is still a little strange to me, though. The fact that it’s practically a living entity with dancing dumpsters and nosy street lights. It’s weird, but funny at times. You really can’t take it too seriously.

It’s funny, because something that got annoying in Boyfriend from Hell was how the reader was constantly reminded of Tina’s disdain for authority figures. It was a bit overkill. Now, in Damn Him to Hell, it seemed like you can’t go more than a few pages without Tina saying something about being a lawyer. It’s usually along the lines of “I’m a lawyer now…”, “I’m a lawyer, not a biochemist…”, or “Now that I’m a lawyer…”. We get it! You passed the damn bar exam and became a lawyer. I seriously wish I could count how many times that word was used.

Overall, I enjoyed Damn Him to Hell and will continue the series. I figure if I liked this one more than the first book, then hopefully I’ll like the third even more.