128 reviews for:

Hell For Hire

Rachel Aaron

4.12 AVERAGE

adventurous dark funny inspiring medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Interesting premise, but the beige prose + constant awkward infodumping made it hard to enjoy.
adventurous emotional funny hopeful medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

“That’s like thinking you’ve rid your house of termites because you’ve killed the ones you can see.”

What a thrilling start to what seems it's going to be a great story! I literally could not stop reading, it was so good. If I have one complaint is that a lot of things were hidden by the narrative, but that's also why this was an excellent first book – no great sins of exposition paragraphs were committed. It just means I can't wait to read the second book and see what going to happen.

Creative, different, nice characters and I really enjoyed. 
adventurous emotional hopeful tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Excellent and quick read! The world building is done very efficiently and the characters are a great example of found family done right. 
adventurous dark hopeful medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
adventurous funny hopeful medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
adventurous fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
adventurous

This was pretty good. I really loved the world building and the set-up for everything. The characters were interesting and unique. I think the biggest problem with the book was that it was lacking a layers or depth. The main plot arc is basically the whole story. There were complexities within that conflict but the book itself, wasn't multi-faceted. It left little foil to the main problems, creating a bit of a slog at times.

Bex and her band of demons are introduced as a mercenary security crew, hired by Adrian Blackwood. He needs protection as he leaves his family and his safe haven for new land to start his own Blackwood forest and create a new safe haven just for himself. His family supported him running away from the warlock cabal that was to train him up to be a warlock. However, he wanted nothing to do with warlocks and wished only to be a witch. He has spent years training and is now a mature and adept witch, and his presence at his family home only brings danger to his family as the warlock cabal is still determined to possess him and his skills. He runs to the opposite side of the country just to distance himself from his family and take a stand against the cabal. But he needs some security while he makes roots in his new home and gives it a strong and good foundation that can fight warlocks.

Bex and her crew turn out to be more than they appear, but it works out for Adrian. Adrian is much more adept and kinder than Bex is used to with her clients. The whole mass of characters gets along much better than expected, give or take a hiccup or two. Eventually they are all a team fighting for the same thing.

There were small things within the story that were never well explained, like why the warlocks still care so much about Adrian. Is it a pride thing? or is he pre-ordained to be extra amazing or something? Perhaps that reveal is still to come, but it would've given more development and credence to the head warlock, Spider's, motivations and determination to apprehend Adrian.

There was also a fair amount of telling to this story. As in, Adrian was just good at witchcraft, so it was just a bunch of telling about how he was tiring himself doing his witchcraft. Bex was the only one shown trying to make true progress, but even that felt a little weak. There could've been a side quest to show the team learning to work together or some side conflict to provide a bit of foil to this main Spider fight quest. There was mainly development of characters' backgrounds and future thoughts for the direction of the series as a whole.

I enjoyed the story enough to look into the next book in the series. The world that was crafted was truly interesting and I look forward to seeing more occur.
adventurous funny hopeful tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Fast read with interesting worldbuilding. Looking forward to the next one!