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Devil's Point #3
Hell on High
In North Carolina, It's Just One Damned Thing After Another Three years after Hell sets up an outpost in North Carolina, engineer Jack Halloran doesn't find it unusual that the devil-plagued state is where he gets to work at his dream job, building a real space drive. Living in North Carolina has its own peculiar challenges, but the company he works for is great, the project is challenging, and his boss is almost too good to be true.
For Rheabeth Samuels, running a company that could give humanity the stars is the best work she's done in a long time. And her chief engineer has started to become more that just a prized employee.
But plagued by gargoyles, gremlins, unreliable funding, and a devilish P.I. hired by Hell's worst clients, Jack and Rhea are racing for the heavens against a ticking clock...and they can only hope to touch the stars if they reach for them together.
For Rheabeth Samuels, running a company that could give humanity the stars is the best work she's done in a long time. And her chief engineer has started to become more that just a prized employee.
But plagued by gargoyles, gremlins, unreliable funding, and a devilish P.I. hired by Hell's worst clients, Jack and Rhea are racing for the heavens against a ticking clock...and they can only hope to touch the stars if they reach for them together.
362 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1997
77 people want to read
About the author
Holly Lisle
109 books449 followersHolly Lisle has been writing fiction professionally since 1991, when she sold FIRE IN THE MIST, the novel that won her the Compton Crook Award for best first novel. She has to date published more than thirty novels and several comprehensive writing courses. She has just published WARPAINT, the second stand-alone novel in her Cadence Drake series.
Holly had an ideal childhood for a writer…which is to say, it was filled with foreign countries and exotic terrains, alien cultures, new languages, the occasional earthquake, flood, or civil war, and one story about a bear, which follows:
“So. Back when I was ten years old, my father and I had finished hunting ducks for our dinner and were walking across the tundra in Alaska toward the spot on the river where we’d tied our boat. We had a couple miles to go by boat to get back to the Moravian Children’s Home, where we lived.
“My father was carrying the big bag of decoys and the shotgun; I was carrying the small bag of ducks.
“It was getting dark, we could hear the thud, thud, thud of the generator across the tundra, and suddenly he stopped, pointed down to a pie-pan sized indentation in the tundra that was rapidly filling with water, and said, in a calm and steady voice, “That’s a bear footprint. From the size of it, it’s a grizzly. The fact that the track is filling with water right now means the bear’s still around.”
“Which got my attention, but not as much as what he said next.
” ‘I don’t have the gun with me that will kill a bear,’ he told me. ‘I just have the one that will make him angry. So if we see the bear, I’m going to shoot him so he’ll attack me. I want you to run to the river, follow it to the boat, get the boat back home, and tell everyone what happened.’
“The rest of our walk was very quiet. He was, I’m sure, listening for the bear. I was doing my damnedest to make sure that I remembered where the boat was, how to get to it, how to start the pull-cord engine, and how to drive it back home, because I did not want to let him down.
“We were not eaten by a bear that night…but neither is that walk back from our hunt for supper a part of my life I’ll ever forget.
“I keep that story in mind as I write. If what I’m putting on paper isn’t at least as memorable as having a grizzly stalking my father and me across the tundra while I was carrying a bag of delicious-smelling ducks, it doesn’t make my cut.”
You can find Holly on her personal site:
Hollylisle.com
You can find Cadence Drake, Holly's currently in-progress series, on her site:
CadenceDrake.com
You can find Holly's books, courses, writing workshops, and so on here:
The HowToThinkSideways.com Shop, as well as on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and in a number of bookstores in the US and around the world.
Holly had an ideal childhood for a writer…which is to say, it was filled with foreign countries and exotic terrains, alien cultures, new languages, the occasional earthquake, flood, or civil war, and one story about a bear, which follows:
“So. Back when I was ten years old, my father and I had finished hunting ducks for our dinner and were walking across the tundra in Alaska toward the spot on the river where we’d tied our boat. We had a couple miles to go by boat to get back to the Moravian Children’s Home, where we lived.
“My father was carrying the big bag of decoys and the shotgun; I was carrying the small bag of ducks.
“It was getting dark, we could hear the thud, thud, thud of the generator across the tundra, and suddenly he stopped, pointed down to a pie-pan sized indentation in the tundra that was rapidly filling with water, and said, in a calm and steady voice, “That’s a bear footprint. From the size of it, it’s a grizzly. The fact that the track is filling with water right now means the bear’s still around.”
“Which got my attention, but not as much as what he said next.
” ‘I don’t have the gun with me that will kill a bear,’ he told me. ‘I just have the one that will make him angry. So if we see the bear, I’m going to shoot him so he’ll attack me. I want you to run to the river, follow it to the boat, get the boat back home, and tell everyone what happened.’
“The rest of our walk was very quiet. He was, I’m sure, listening for the bear. I was doing my damnedest to make sure that I remembered where the boat was, how to get to it, how to start the pull-cord engine, and how to drive it back home, because I did not want to let him down.
“We were not eaten by a bear that night…but neither is that walk back from our hunt for supper a part of my life I’ll ever forget.
“I keep that story in mind as I write. If what I’m putting on paper isn’t at least as memorable as having a grizzly stalking my father and me across the tundra while I was carrying a bag of delicious-smelling ducks, it doesn’t make my cut.”
You can find Holly on her personal site:
Hollylisle.com
You can find Cadence Drake, Holly's currently in-progress series, on her site:
CadenceDrake.com
You can find Holly's books, courses, writing workshops, and so on here:
The HowToThinkSideways.com Shop, as well as on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and in a number of bookstores in the US and around the world.
Ratings & Reviews
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
September 1, 2015
This is the third book in the Devil’s Point series. The premise of this series is that God has authorized a certain number of demons to live in North Carolina, interacting freely with the humans who live there, with various stipulations to keep things from getting too out of hand. In this book Averial, one of the original fallen angels, sneaks up to Earth without Satan’s knowledge and manages to go completely off the grid. When Satan realizes she’s missing, he enlists demons to find her. Meanwhile, Averial is trying to give humans the stars by helping to develop a working space ship.
This book was ok, and it had some good points, but I think the uniqueness of the premise has worn off for me and the story itself just didn’t hold my interest as well as the previous two. It was also nearly as romance-heavy as the first book had been, and I didn’t care for that. The romance seemed pretty generic to me, despite the identity of the partners. Since the books are so short already, it took away from what I thought was the more interesting aspect of the story.
I really don’t have anything else to say that I haven’t already said about the previous books in the series. Overall, this is a series with an interesting premise, good writing, and relatively well-done characters, but the plots were on the thin side and often overshadowed by romances. There was some light humor sprinkled throughout the series, and there were some nice if not very subtle themes about making the right choices, about trying our best, and about love and loyalty.
This book was ok, and it had some good points, but I think the uniqueness of the premise has worn off for me and the story itself just didn’t hold my interest as well as the previous two. It was also nearly as romance-heavy as the first book had been, and I didn’t care for that. The romance seemed pretty generic to me, despite the identity of the partners. Since the books are so short already, it took away from what I thought was the more interesting aspect of the story.
I really don’t have anything else to say that I haven’t already said about the previous books in the series. Overall, this is a series with an interesting premise, good writing, and relatively well-done characters, but the plots were on the thin side and often overshadowed by romances. There was some light humor sprinkled throughout the series, and there were some nice if not very subtle themes about making the right choices, about trying our best, and about love and loyalty.
January 26, 2024
This is wonderful end to the series. I liked the way the plot developed for the various characters and appreciated the sarcastic humor. I liked the two main characters and liked the end to their part of the story. I think the best part of the book was the last two chapters where the final resolution was presented. This was a good series that presents the different sides of good and evil and raises the importance and consequences of the personal choice in a humorous way.
January 16, 2023
Definitely the weakest book in the series thus far. Just really a lot of misogyny from all male characters, good and bad too, it was a bit much
July 16, 2013
This one was a lot better than the second book in the series and nearly as good as book one. I loved the Devil's Advocat and knew fairly early on who it was, but that didn't diminish the reading pleasure one bit.
I'd like to point out that this book is very different in mood and tone than the first or second. The first was partially funny with some laugh-out-lound jokes. The second had me smirk a lot, but this one did not contain much humor (the gremlins and gargoyle are probably the one exception). But it featured a wonderful lovestory and an even bigger thriller element. I had hoped so much that the Devils Advocate would manage to outrun the pursuers...
It's a great read for anyone who likes romance and thriller rolled into one. If you expect lots of humor, you'd better not read this book.
I'd like to point out that this book is very different in mood and tone than the first or second. The first was partially funny with some laugh-out-lound jokes. The second had me smirk a lot, but this one did not contain much humor (the gremlins and gargoyle are probably the one exception). But it featured a wonderful lovestory and an even bigger thriller element. I had hoped so much that the Devils Advocate would manage to outrun the pursuers...
It's a great read for anyone who likes romance and thriller rolled into one. If you expect lots of humor, you'd better not read this book.
March 14, 2009
Jee, the first book was so good, and it kind of makes you wonder how the third book could be such crap.
Ok, ok, it probably deserves a 2 1/2 or maybe even a 3, and it must be acknowledged that Miramuel and Remufel were really funny and cute.
It's just...the book had nothing to do with Devil's Point. And isn't that the name of the series? Devil's Point? It had nothing to do with it. This book was all about Jack and Rhea. And, no, they aren't the most boring characters in existence, but they were probably the most boring out of all the other characters in the series, so we didn't want the book to really be all about that.
Oh, and Craig Mindenhall's butt. I didn't really want the book to really be all about that, either.
Ok, ok, it probably deserves a 2 1/2 or maybe even a 3, and it must be acknowledged that Miramuel and Remufel were really funny and cute.
It's just...the book had nothing to do with Devil's Point. And isn't that the name of the series? Devil's Point? It had nothing to do with it. This book was all about Jack and Rhea. And, no, they aren't the most boring characters in existence, but they were probably the most boring out of all the other characters in the series, so we didn't want the book to really be all about that.
Oh, and Craig Mindenhall's butt. I didn't really want the book to really be all about that, either.
July 28, 2014
I've thoroughly enjoyed this series ever since the first book. The only real criticism I'd have of this book is that the author needs to not mistake inside jokes for general humor - as a fellow software engineer the constant in-jokes got a little grating after a while. Other than that, this was a solid entry in the series.
August 6, 2016
It's a personal thing. The perversion of religious belief just got to me. I couldn't read anymore. The writing is still good and Ms. Lisle has a great sense of humour throughout the book. It just was okay for me.
January 22, 2009
Hmm... this one and the 2nd book weren't have as good as the first one, but still worth reading. (It doesn't actually deserve a 4, so don't ask why I gave it one.) More romance. Oh well.
Read
May 5, 2009Sympathy For The Devil by Holly Lisle (2000)
January 22, 2016
Another good fantasy read.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews