Not Your Average Hot Guy: A Novel

by Gwenda Bond

Overview

"Fun, funny, hot, and heartfelt...The apocalyptic beach read that everyone needs." - Alix E. Harrow, Hugo Award-winning author

A paranormal romantic comedy at the (possible) end of the world.

From New York Times bestselling author Gwenda Bond, Not Your Average Hot Guy is a hilarious romantic comedy about two people falling in love, while the fate of the world rests on their shoulders.

All Callie wanted was a quiet weekend with her best friend. She promised she could handle running her family’s escape room business while her mom is out of town. Instead a Satanic cult shows up, claiming that the prop spell book in one of the rooms is the real deal, and they need it to summon the right hand of the devil. Naturally they take Callie and her friend, Mag, along with them. But when the summoning reveals a handsome demon in a leather jacket named Luke who offers to help Callie stop the cult from destroying the world, her night goes from weird to completely strange.

As the group tries to stay one step ahead of the cult, Callie finds herself drawn to the annoying (and annoyingly handsome) Luke. But what Callie doesn’t know is that Luke is none other than Luke Morningstar, Prince of Hell and son of the Devil himself. Callie never had time for love, and with the apocalypse coming closer, is there room for romance when all hell’s about to break loose?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250771759
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/05/2021
Series:	Match Made in Hell , #1
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	692,381
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Gwenda Bond is the New York Times bestselling author of many novels, including the Lois Lane and Cirque American trilogies. She wrote the first official Stranger Things novel, Suspicious Minds. She also created Dead Air, a serialized mystery and scripted podcast written with Carrie Ryan and Rachel Caine. Not Your Average Hot Guy is her first romantic comedy for adults.

Her nonfiction writing has appeared in Publishers Weekly, Locus Magazine, Salon, the Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. She has an MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband and their unruly pets. She believes she may have escaped from a 1940s screwball comedy. She writes a monthlyish letter you can sign up for at her website, and you can also follow her on Twitter.

GWENDA BOND is the bestselling author of many novels, including the Lois Lane and Cirque American trilogies and the Match Made in Hell duology. She wrote the first official Stranger Things novel, Suspicious Minds and created Dead Air, a serialized mystery and scripted podcast written with Carrie Ryan and Rachel Caine.

Her nonfiction writing has appeared in Publishers Weekly, Locus Magazine, Salon, the Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. She has an MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband and their unruly pets. She believes she may have escaped from a 1940s screwball comedy. She writes a monthlyish letter you can sign up for at her website, and you can also follow her on Twitter.

Editorial Reviews

Featured on Buzzfeed, SweetyHigh, The Nerd Daily, and more!

"Delightful mythological elements and laugh-out-loud humor make this a light-hearted, feel-good paranormal romcom. Mature teens will enjoy the Hell mythology, adventure, and humor as well as the twentysomething characters who are still trying to live up to parental expectations." - Booklist

“Bestselling YA author Bond makes her adult debut with an entertaining paranormal rom-com and duology launch. The result is fun, light, and funny.” —Publishers Weekly

"Fun, funny, hot, and heartfelt: Not Your Average Hot Guy is The Good Place but 20% nerdier and 200% sexier. The apocalyptic beach read that everyone needs." - Alix E. Harrow, Hugo Award-winning author

"I never knew the Apocalypse could be so much fun! I absolutely loved spending time with these characters, and in this world. Even if it is almost ending." - Kat Howard, author of the Alex Award-winning An Unkindness of Magicians

From the Publisher

2021-09-01
It’s the end of the world as she knows it, but the Prince of Hell is fine.

Callie, a recent college graduate living back at home with her mother, is admittedly “flailing a bit” at adulthood. With no idea what to do with her history degree, she's helping to run The Great Escape, the family’s successful escape room business. But on Callie's first weekend taking the reins while her mom is away, all hell breaks loose—literally. A satanic cult headed by the blackhearted Solomon Elerion has been drawn to the occult-inspired escape room for a prop book of spells that turns out to be very real, hoping to summon a high-level demon. Their plan? To bargain for the location of The Holy Lance, which they will use to bring about the apocalypse. Luke Morningstar, Prince of Hell, is also finding adulthood harder than he imagined. He has yet to receive his wings and is under strict orders from his father to start harvesting souls for the underworld. When his supervisor, Lucifuge Rofocale, is summoned by Elerion, Luke goes in his stead with grand plans to accomplish this task and get his dad off his back. What he doesn’t plan for is Callie, their immediate attraction, or how much he wants to help her save the world. The author successfully creates a tongue-in-cheek supernatural adventure held up by witty banter and a ragtag team of heroic underdogs, including Callie's nonbinary best friend, the artistic and stylish Mag. But the lackluster instalove romance between a stereotypically bookish heroine and a demon who's supposed to be hot as hellfire but lacks any sinister devilishness, pacing that's off, and ham-fisted pop-culture references drag the novel down.

A funny but uneven take on love at the end of the world.

Kirkus Reviews