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Hell on Earth #4
Hell to Pay
After turning her back on Hell and becoming human, the former demon Jezebel — now the mortal dancer Jesse Harris — is ready to settle down with her true love, Paul Hamilton, and make with the Happily Ever After. But that’s not in the cards. Jesse is accidentally wielding her former Hellish power — with devastating results. Another former succubus has targeted Paul. Someone is killing the dancers at Jesse’s club. And the King of Hell is leading the world to the brink of Armageddon. All in all, it’s not looking good for Jesse, or for anyone she loves. And there’s going to be…
HELL TO PAY
By Jackie Kessler
In this fourth and final Hell on Earth novel, everything changes.
HELL TO PAY
By Jackie Kessler
In this fourth and final Hell on Earth novel, everything changes.
285 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 25, 2011
1 person is currently reading
174 people want to read
About the author
Jackie Kessler
27 books335 followersSome kids want to grow up to be doctors, or movie stars, or political assassins. Me, I wanted to draw comic books. Not Archie comics, either—superhero comic books. Maybe it was all the heavily muscled guys in spandex…
Around the time I was 15, I realized that as much as I enjoyed drawing (note that I’m saying nothing about the quality of those pics), it was a lot of fun putting words in the characters’ mouths. I didn’t know the term “fanfic” back then, but I started writing stories about the X-Men, Alpha Flight, and the Teen Titans. Didn’t do anything with those stories, other than horrify my mother. She asked why I couldn’t write nice stories, you know, about bunnies. Nope—me, I wanted to write about power. About magic. About hot guys in spandex. And about beating those guys bloody and senseless. (In retrospect, maybe I really did want to horrify my mother. Hey, not my fault. When I was a kid, I busted her doodling on the cover of New Teen Titans #6. Argh!)
So maybe it’s ironic that the book I wound up writing had nothing to do with overly muscled men and everything to do with scantily clad women. (Well, temporarily scantily clad.) Oh, right, and demons.
Previously, I was the fantasy editor for Wild Child Publishing. Along with working with terrific authors and editors, I’d been fortunate enough to interview a number of fabulous people for WCP, including Margaret Weis (I think Raistlin was my first crush).
In case you’re wondering, I live in Upstate New York, along with my Loving Husband and two Precious Little Tax Deductions, two cats, and about 9,000 comics. (But actually, that number is now closer to 8,000, thanks to a flooded basement. Alas!)
Around the time I was 15, I realized that as much as I enjoyed drawing (note that I’m saying nothing about the quality of those pics), it was a lot of fun putting words in the characters’ mouths. I didn’t know the term “fanfic” back then, but I started writing stories about the X-Men, Alpha Flight, and the Teen Titans. Didn’t do anything with those stories, other than horrify my mother. She asked why I couldn’t write nice stories, you know, about bunnies. Nope—me, I wanted to write about power. About magic. About hot guys in spandex. And about beating those guys bloody and senseless. (In retrospect, maybe I really did want to horrify my mother. Hey, not my fault. When I was a kid, I busted her doodling on the cover of New Teen Titans #6. Argh!)
So maybe it’s ironic that the book I wound up writing had nothing to do with overly muscled men and everything to do with scantily clad women. (Well, temporarily scantily clad.) Oh, right, and demons.
Previously, I was the fantasy editor for Wild Child Publishing. Along with working with terrific authors and editors, I’d been fortunate enough to interview a number of fabulous people for WCP, including Margaret Weis (I think Raistlin was my first crush).
In case you’re wondering, I live in Upstate New York, along with my Loving Husband and two Precious Little Tax Deductions, two cats, and about 9,000 comics. (But actually, that number is now closer to 8,000, thanks to a flooded basement. Alas!)
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 8, 2011
Originally posted at WickedLilPixie Reviews
Hell to Pay is the fourth and final (booo!) book in Jackie Kessler’s Hell On Earth series, but it should also be known as the book in which Jezebel comes in to her own and kicks some demon ass!
From the previous Hell On Earth books we have learned that our charming and lively Jezebel is horny. A lot. But rightly so! She is a former succubus who now lives her life as a mortal meat puppet with her first true love “Big Shoulders” Paul. Six months has passed since she first earned her soul to be with the man she loves, and they are slowly trying to build a routine living together despite their conflicting schedules. Jez still dances at Spice as an exotic dancer and Paul is busier than ever as a detective. Jez, now known as Jesse in her human world, has developed real human connections with fellow humans, and is beginning to experience all new feelings she doesn’t know how to define. Someone or something is murdering strippers that she works with, and it’s just a matter of time before he/her/it comes after Jesse. But above all her personal trials and tribulations, she discovers just how important she truly is in the Grand scheme of things, and all the world may hang in the balance of her making one decision. A choice. She has come to a true Crossroads.
In Hell to Pay, the stakes are way higher than our previous journeys with our beloved former-succubus. Jezebel has plenty of worldly experience being a demon for 4,000 years, but is negative-clueless to human emotions. As one traumatic even after another happens, she gets a crash course in what it feels like to experience pain, loss, love. We also see how how she identifies then handles these emotions, and moves on. We experience every newfound feeling with her for the first time making this book the rawest of them all. Jez is still the same silly goofy mess we first loved about her from the start, but things have gotten very… real… for her now.
Jackie Kessler’s Hell to Pay series is refreshing, steamy, charming, and smart. Hell to Pay is a truly fantastic way to end the series, even if the ending is bittersweet. Thank Hell! there will be a new series (a Hell.2) called Pit and Paradise in which we are rejoined with our beloved Jezebel and her gang of otherworlders we have so deeply come to love. Ms. Kessler promises us that she will have the first eBook of the series written by this Fall! I neeeeeed more Feathers (I know, I know she wants to be called Angel but she’ll always be Feathers to me), and I need more Daun. And Jez, and Paul, and Magaera, and ohhh nevermind. I need more of them all.
Here are the four books in the Hell On Earth series. Please give this series a try. I think you’ll become an instant Jez fan just like me, and devour all four books like chocolate omnomnom!
Hell’s Belles
The Road to Hell
Hotter Than Hell
Hell To Pay
Hell to Pay is the fourth and final (booo!) book in Jackie Kessler’s Hell On Earth series, but it should also be known as the book in which Jezebel comes in to her own and kicks some demon ass!
From the previous Hell On Earth books we have learned that our charming and lively Jezebel is horny. A lot. But rightly so! She is a former succubus who now lives her life as a mortal meat puppet with her first true love “Big Shoulders” Paul. Six months has passed since she first earned her soul to be with the man she loves, and they are slowly trying to build a routine living together despite their conflicting schedules. Jez still dances at Spice as an exotic dancer and Paul is busier than ever as a detective. Jez, now known as Jesse in her human world, has developed real human connections with fellow humans, and is beginning to experience all new feelings she doesn’t know how to define. Someone or something is murdering strippers that she works with, and it’s just a matter of time before he/her/it comes after Jesse. But above all her personal trials and tribulations, she discovers just how important she truly is in the Grand scheme of things, and all the world may hang in the balance of her making one decision. A choice. She has come to a true Crossroads.
In Hell to Pay, the stakes are way higher than our previous journeys with our beloved former-succubus. Jezebel has plenty of worldly experience being a demon for 4,000 years, but is negative-clueless to human emotions. As one traumatic even after another happens, she gets a crash course in what it feels like to experience pain, loss, love. We also see how how she identifies then handles these emotions, and moves on. We experience every newfound feeling with her for the first time making this book the rawest of them all. Jez is still the same silly goofy mess we first loved about her from the start, but things have gotten very… real… for her now.
Jackie Kessler’s Hell to Pay series is refreshing, steamy, charming, and smart. Hell to Pay is a truly fantastic way to end the series, even if the ending is bittersweet. Thank Hell! there will be a new series (a Hell.2) called Pit and Paradise in which we are rejoined with our beloved Jezebel and her gang of otherworlders we have so deeply come to love. Ms. Kessler promises us that she will have the first eBook of the series written by this Fall! I neeeeeed more Feathers (I know, I know she wants to be called Angel but she’ll always be Feathers to me), and I need more Daun. And Jez, and Paul, and Magaera, and ohhh nevermind. I need more of them all.
Here are the four books in the Hell On Earth series. Please give this series a try. I think you’ll become an instant Jez fan just like me, and devour all four books like chocolate omnomnom!
Hell’s Belles
The Road to Hell
Hotter Than Hell
Hell To Pay
May 26, 2011
4.5 stars. Wow!! Just wow!!! I love Jezzie and all of her antics and adventures, and I've so enjoyed the Hell on Earth series, but nothing has been easy for the former succubus, and I was very nervous reading this book, the final book in the HoE series. So, imagine how my heart plummeted when it said "The End" but I didn't think that it should be over?!? There wasn't an HEA, there wasn't even a HFN! What???? And then I thought to myself, how in Hell am I going to rate this book?? It was FABULOUS, as all the other HoE books have been. Kessler's writing is wonderful, witty, and sharp. I love the character development, especially that of Jezzie, and I love to see how Hell's plot has thickened, with Jezzie right in the thick of it all. But to get to the end, with things really not resolved with Paul, or even Daun for that matter, and not ending with an HEA or HFN??? Bless me and then fuck me with a fork! It's like a sucker punch to the gut!!
Well, thank you sweet baby Jesus, I went on to read all the acknowledgments at the end of the book to discover that Kessler may have ended the HoE series, but that she plans to continue the plot into a new series, Pit and Paradise. It may not jive with Jezzie when I say this, but ALLELUIA!!! OMG, did that just MAKE.MY.DAY!!!
I don't know who Jezzie will end up with, and I have to say that at this point, I really would be happy with either Paul or Daun, as long as Jezzie is happy and fully in love. But I am just so happy to know that there is a possibility of one of those now that there'll be a new series. I really do look so forward to continuing to read about Jezzie and her looming battle with Michael, the {evil} archangel!
Well, thank you sweet baby Jesus, I went on to read all the acknowledgments at the end of the book to discover that Kessler may have ended the HoE series, but that she plans to continue the plot into a new series, Pit and Paradise. It may not jive with Jezzie when I say this, but ALLELUIA!!! OMG, did that just MAKE.MY.DAY!!!
I don't know who Jezzie will end up with, and I have to say that at this point, I really would be happy with either Paul or Daun, as long as Jezzie is happy and fully in love. But I am just so happy to know that there is a possibility of one of those now that there'll be a new series. I really do look so forward to continuing to read about Jezzie and her looming battle with Michael, the {evil} archangel!
February 21, 2019
Great slow burner of a series but I felt like it ended right in the middle of the story. I need to know what happens next!
April 22, 2011
Best Hell on Earth book yet.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews