I have once again been fooled by a dope cover. This book follows a preacher and an ex-addict, as their lives intersect when a devil comes to earth to offer deals. 

The premise to this book was good—I love a religious horror, and the idea of a preacher working with a devil (although not new) is still an interesting premise. It’s easy to see how power can corrupt a man like that, who already has a taste for it as a spiritual leader. And the inclusion of Seph, an ex-addict who just wanted to be better for his son, was a good juxtaposition for the preacher character (corruption of the “good” spiritual leader, vs his foil, a “bad” person serving out a sentence but who wants to do what’s right). 

That being said—a good premise does not make a good book! The writing was unbearably clunky, and nothing was explained past a surface level. Like, there was no complexity or drama to anything I was reading, and the characters were all very one-note. It was just “This happened, then this happened, He said this, He wanted this”. It was like someone had an idea of what they wanted to happen, and then wrote the bare minimum amount of words (while using a thesaurus) to connect those events. Just not an enjoyable read, and seemed to drag on even though it was incredibly short, just because it was hard to stay engaged when I didn’t care about anyone or anything. 

Feel free to skip this one. 

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review!