Out of the Madhouse by Christopher Golden

(And if you consider that a spoiler, romance probably isn’t the genre for you.) What I loved Callie figures a lot of stuff out, so does Luke, and they get to be together, yay. (Excalibur isn’t in the book to my recollection, by the way.) I briefly found myself thinking for a moment, “How wild is all this Arthuriana just happening in Callie’s real life?” before remembering that OH YEAH HER BOYFRIEND IS THE PRINCE OF HELL.īecause it’s a romance, it ends with a tidy Happily Ever After (leaving Gwenda free to work on other romances like MR. More wacky hijinks ensue, more traveling by map, and more Arthuriana than you can shake Excalibur at. The person he chooses is Sean, a lost-Hemsworth-brother-type/international art thief who oh, by the way, is a Grail seeker. Lucifer says that Callie and Luke have 72 hours to prove that they can redeem someone who deserves to be released from hell. Which also happens to be the same day Callie is supposed to be helping her mom with a big escape room event to raise the money to make repairs after the mess she and Luke got into in NOT YOUR AVERAGE HOT GUY. Lucifer agrees to a meeting - on the day Callie and Luke are scheduled to have their big date. But they also have a bit of a revolution planned: Callie wants to petition Lucifer to reconsider the damnation of people like Agnes, a 12-year-old girl who really probably should not have been sent to hell and certainly isn’t an adult by modern standards.

It’s important that it’s a HFN because a Happily Ever After wouldn’t leave room for the sequel:Ĭallie and Luke are happily dating now and they have an amazing date planned. To do so, they travel through painful demon magic, bopping around the world in a way that would make an Indiana Jones map look like Charlie Kelly’s conspiracy board:īecause you know how romance works, you know that they figure it out and get a Happy For Now.

Wackiness ensues as Callie and Luke must team up to find the Holy Lance (that’s the Spear of Destiny for you The Librarian fans) and keep it from the cultists (who don’t actually know that Luke isn’t the demon they were trying to summon). But instead they summon Luke, the super sexy prince of Hell. When Callie designs an immersive culty room and puts a book in it that is ACTUALLY an arcane artifact, cultists come to claim it and try to use it to release a demon on earth to bring about the end times. Gwenda Bond’s books are always The Most Fun and her madcap fantasy romance duology is no exception.Ĭallie is a recentish college grad with no particular direction in life but a great love of books, learning, and creepy religious lore.

Do you wish Dan Brown books were sexy and full of pop culture references? Do you like your religious artifact stories with comedy and kissing? Have I got the books for you!

Out of the Madhouse by Christopher Golden