Saturday, March 23, 2013

Review:The Boyfriend from Hell

Synopsis: 

 Veronica Delaney is a bright and beautiful, young New York journalist who has had hard luck romantically and professionally. Her latest boyfriend left her for fame (and another woman, of course), and her latest assignment has her covering a bizarre satanic cult. But while following the story, Veronica soon meets the charming, polite, and devilishly handsome occult historian Richard Smith. Soon she’s embroiled in an exciting affair—at least until strange relics begin to appear on her doorstep and things start to go terribly wrong. 

The Boyfriend from Hell is a funny, astute psychological thriller about the mysteries of attraction and love’s power to hijack our good sense. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Avery Corman including rare images from the author’s personal collection




This one was a solid 3 flames for me. The writing is good, and the story is told in a way that keeps you turning the pages to find out what happens to Veronica/Ronnie. She's in a heap of trouble, for sure.

Veronica is a young free-lance writer. Her latest project has her researching a local satanic cult, complete with internet presence. In the process, she meets a Satan expert, Richard, who woos her. It was fairly clear from the start that Richard was suspicious, his lifestyle odd, but the sex is good and Ronnie is attracted to him. After Richard convinces her to try her hand at writing a book on possession, well, things get really weird and potentially dangerous for Ronnie.

I did like Ronnie's character very much. The fact that she seems very grounded makes what happens to her more interesting. Her very supportive roommate Nancy and her boyfriend Bob helped to give good balance to the bizarre. They contributed nicely to the story.

At times the POV changes were a bit jarring for me. I was expecting a bit more horror, and this seemed more of a psychological thriller, but that was okay. It's a classic story of almost-possession, and there aren't any big surprises. The ending was predictable and a bit too quickly resolved. I would have liked a little more of what happened to Ronnie after the scene in the church. It seemed clear that evil wasn't going to give up.

So if you are in the mood for a not-too-intense possession story, this might be for you.

Thanks to Open Road and Netgalley for the chance to read and review.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great review! I was hoping for some horror in this one. There's just not enough good horror romances out there :)

Pam

Trader Mare said...

Yes, it was more psychological thriller than anything. I had the sense the author held back on the horror, although some nasty stuff went on, but it was resolved in such a way as to not involve the very likable main character.

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