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Gehenna
Forget Hell, this is Gehenna. You die, you’re damned and then you wake up here, but that’s not the end of the story. If you don’t redeem, or die the second and final death, you slowly turn into a demon—and then you really do belong in hell.
Michael Thane is running out of time, the change from man to demon is eroding what little humanity he has left. His state of mind isn’t helped when he’s framed for a series of brutal torture-murders so vicious they’re threatening to shatter a two thousand year-old truce.
Forced to go on the run, he snatches the one human who knows he’s innocent, Special Constable Elizabeth Grant. Murder and an all-or-nothing hunt through the worst parts of hell are not their only problems. They have to figure out who is trying to return Gehenna to a true hell of torment before it’s too late.
Michael Thane is running out of time, the change from man to demon is eroding what little humanity he has left. His state of mind isn’t helped when he’s framed for a series of brutal torture-murders so vicious they’re threatening to shatter a two thousand year-old truce.
Forced to go on the run, he snatches the one human who knows he’s innocent, Special Constable Elizabeth Grant. Murder and an all-or-nothing hunt through the worst parts of hell are not their only problems. They have to figure out who is trying to return Gehenna to a true hell of torment before it’s too late.
- GenresThriller
382 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 15, 2012
2 people are currently reading
56 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 19, 2014
Ms. Taft’s book is a well-written thriller that’ll hold your attention over the course of two to three evenings of compulsive reading and not a moment longer. The pace of the story and the way she writes it are both spot on, but there’s not much that will stick with you once you finish it. The setting, the story, and the characters are all missed opportunities that are particularly unfortunate given just how well Ms. Taft can write. Despite that, this book is an ideal read and forget thriller/romance.
To be clear, the writing and pacing are spot on. The author puts the sentences together well, seamlessly transitions between scenes, ends the chapters in the right place, and does a generally excellent job of presenting the story she’s come up with. I could easily see a publisher putting Ms. Taft’s work on the shelf beside a Stephanie Plum novel.
That said, writing stock thriller/romance novels for the rest of her days would be a waste of Ms. Taft’s abilities, and that’s the primary reason I’m going to be exceedingly critical for the rest of this review. Let’s be clear: if you just want something to fill the time without having to dwell on it too much, this book is a 5/5. If, however, you want to read something of substance that’ll stick with you and roll around in the back of your head, this book is nothing more than a great execution of bland formula you’ve trudged through a hundred times before.
First, there’s the content of the story itself: it’s about Liz, a woman who falls in love with a troubled bad boy, Michael Thane, who’s had 900+ years in Hell to strip him of all emotions. Of course, by the end of the book they’re married and breaking bed-frames like stress-testing machines at a furniture factory. It is the standard troubled-but-reformed woman turns a bad boy into a lovable, romantic stud through the force of being herself. Sure, there are the people they’re trying to protect, the villains trying to make Hell a worse place than it already is, and the jerks in between who don’t care, but the core story is a bog-standard improbable romance.
Second, the setting itself is both incredibly troubling and a wasted opportunity. It’s set in Hell (or Gehenna if you prefer), and it is very much Hell in the Christian sense. There’s a whole quarter full of those poor, ignorant pagans ticked off that they chose the wrong gods and happily sacrificing every soul they can get their hands onto. Most everyone and anything evil in the book enjoys murder and torture. Everyone who isn’t desperately seeking redemption is little more than a drunken nihilist. And those trying to redeem themselves are quite clearly Christian. The implication is that if you’re not a Christian, then you’re ultimate fate is to turn into a crazed, sado-masochistic vampire.
It’s a pretty bold theological statement to make, and it is made for no other reason than to offer a unique setting for a forgettable story. The location could have as easily been New York City. It’s not that I had a horse in this race, but this book has all of the plot holes that every work of fiction set in the afterlife and not written by Dante or Neil Gaiman have.
Souls spawn into Hell like pod-people, at random. If the entire point is to give souls a chance at redemption, it’s pretty silly that some can spawn in the middle of a bad part of town and get torn to pieces within seconds. Sure, the main character gets saved, and it’s implied everything happens for a reason, but given the book emphasizes just how many people get torn apart upon seconds of entering the afterlife, that doesn’t cut it.
The second problem: religion aside, Gehenna is nothing more than a Gritty Urban Place, a Gotham City that people also happen to call Hell. There is the nice part of town, the crappy middle part where all of the dance clubs, brothels, and drug dealers are, and then the part of town where people like to skin each other alive. I’ll say it again, but there was no good reason to set this book in the afterlife.
The third problem with the setting: people need to eat, sleep, work jobs, and can die. So it’s basically just like the real world with a few more psychopaths per thousand people. Sure, old souls turn into ‘demons,’ but demons are just another word (one that gets dropped relatively fast) for vampires. Vampires. So if you don’t find redemption fast enough, you get super powers and eventually turn into an insane monster. And if you die, I’m still not quite sure what happens.
There’s a simple rule: if you’re going to set a story in the afterlife, and people can die in the story without you knowing what happens to them afterward, then you’ve completely missed the point of setting your story in the damned afterlife. As far as I can tell here, about the only reason for the setting is so that the main character can fall in love with a vampire.
The afterlife, as a setting, has vast amounts of potential, but in this particular book that potential wasn't realized.
As for the characters, there was nothing wrong with them, but they were little more than tried and true archetypes: the brooding vampire, the woman who warms his heart, the troubled but good commissioner, the dedicated best friend, the conniving council member, etc. They all served their purposes well, and they managed to rile me up a few times, but none of them really stood out.
The biggest problem, as mentioned earlier, was that every villain was a sadist, a masochist, or both. Gabriel, for his part, got off on torturing women. Physical violence, especially towards women, is one of the more predictable and boring ways to depict evil. If you really want to get into something that’s interesting, write about the mental processes necessary to allow a person to think that something like torture is acceptable.
Also, all of the villains enjoy kinky sex, and none of the good guys apparently do. This is a problem in a lot of crime drama where writers assume that anyone who enjoys messing around with a few peculiar toys has to be a serial killer or a murderer. There would be a loooot more serial killers in the world if that was actually true, so it's a pet peeve of mine. Most author's don't realize they're sending that message, but it's something to watch.
At the end of the day, there’s nothing that makes this book special, nothing that burrowed into the back of my mind and made me think. Its setting and many of the characters are problematic for the reasons discussed above, and the story is about as straightforward as they come.
All of that said, Ms. Taft is a fantastic writer, and I’m giving her so much trouble for that exact reason. Her talents are ill-served writing bog-standard thriller/romance novels. But again, let’s be clear: she can write them damned well. This book serves the same functions as a good 90s action movie. It’s just that I believe Ms. Taft is capable of much more than that. I give it a 4/5.
To be clear, the writing and pacing are spot on. The author puts the sentences together well, seamlessly transitions between scenes, ends the chapters in the right place, and does a generally excellent job of presenting the story she’s come up with. I could easily see a publisher putting Ms. Taft’s work on the shelf beside a Stephanie Plum novel.
That said, writing stock thriller/romance novels for the rest of her days would be a waste of Ms. Taft’s abilities, and that’s the primary reason I’m going to be exceedingly critical for the rest of this review. Let’s be clear: if you just want something to fill the time without having to dwell on it too much, this book is a 5/5. If, however, you want to read something of substance that’ll stick with you and roll around in the back of your head, this book is nothing more than a great execution of bland formula you’ve trudged through a hundred times before.
First, there’s the content of the story itself: it’s about Liz, a woman who falls in love with a troubled bad boy, Michael Thane, who’s had 900+ years in Hell to strip him of all emotions. Of course, by the end of the book they’re married and breaking bed-frames like stress-testing machines at a furniture factory. It is the standard troubled-but-reformed woman turns a bad boy into a lovable, romantic stud through the force of being herself. Sure, there are the people they’re trying to protect, the villains trying to make Hell a worse place than it already is, and the jerks in between who don’t care, but the core story is a bog-standard improbable romance.
Second, the setting itself is both incredibly troubling and a wasted opportunity. It’s set in Hell (or Gehenna if you prefer), and it is very much Hell in the Christian sense. There’s a whole quarter full of those poor, ignorant pagans ticked off that they chose the wrong gods and happily sacrificing every soul they can get their hands onto. Most everyone and anything evil in the book enjoys murder and torture. Everyone who isn’t desperately seeking redemption is little more than a drunken nihilist. And those trying to redeem themselves are quite clearly Christian. The implication is that if you’re not a Christian, then you’re ultimate fate is to turn into a crazed, sado-masochistic vampire.
It’s a pretty bold theological statement to make, and it is made for no other reason than to offer a unique setting for a forgettable story. The location could have as easily been New York City. It’s not that I had a horse in this race, but this book has all of the plot holes that every work of fiction set in the afterlife and not written by Dante or Neil Gaiman have.
Souls spawn into Hell like pod-people, at random. If the entire point is to give souls a chance at redemption, it’s pretty silly that some can spawn in the middle of a bad part of town and get torn to pieces within seconds. Sure, the main character gets saved, and it’s implied everything happens for a reason, but given the book emphasizes just how many people get torn apart upon seconds of entering the afterlife, that doesn’t cut it.
The second problem: religion aside, Gehenna is nothing more than a Gritty Urban Place, a Gotham City that people also happen to call Hell. There is the nice part of town, the crappy middle part where all of the dance clubs, brothels, and drug dealers are, and then the part of town where people like to skin each other alive. I’ll say it again, but there was no good reason to set this book in the afterlife.
The third problem with the setting: people need to eat, sleep, work jobs, and can die. So it’s basically just like the real world with a few more psychopaths per thousand people. Sure, old souls turn into ‘demons,’ but demons are just another word (one that gets dropped relatively fast) for vampires. Vampires. So if you don’t find redemption fast enough, you get super powers and eventually turn into an insane monster. And if you die, I’m still not quite sure what happens.
There’s a simple rule: if you’re going to set a story in the afterlife, and people can die in the story without you knowing what happens to them afterward, then you’ve completely missed the point of setting your story in the damned afterlife. As far as I can tell here, about the only reason for the setting is so that the main character can fall in love with a vampire.
The afterlife, as a setting, has vast amounts of potential, but in this particular book that potential wasn't realized.
As for the characters, there was nothing wrong with them, but they were little more than tried and true archetypes: the brooding vampire, the woman who warms his heart, the troubled but good commissioner, the dedicated best friend, the conniving council member, etc. They all served their purposes well, and they managed to rile me up a few times, but none of them really stood out.
The biggest problem, as mentioned earlier, was that every villain was a sadist, a masochist, or both. Gabriel, for his part, got off on torturing women. Physical violence, especially towards women, is one of the more predictable and boring ways to depict evil. If you really want to get into something that’s interesting, write about the mental processes necessary to allow a person to think that something like torture is acceptable.
Also, all of the villains enjoy kinky sex, and none of the good guys apparently do. This is a problem in a lot of crime drama where writers assume that anyone who enjoys messing around with a few peculiar toys has to be a serial killer or a murderer. There would be a loooot more serial killers in the world if that was actually true, so it's a pet peeve of mine. Most author's don't realize they're sending that message, but it's something to watch.
At the end of the day, there’s nothing that makes this book special, nothing that burrowed into the back of my mind and made me think. Its setting and many of the characters are problematic for the reasons discussed above, and the story is about as straightforward as they come.
All of that said, Ms. Taft is a fantastic writer, and I’m giving her so much trouble for that exact reason. Her talents are ill-served writing bog-standard thriller/romance novels. But again, let’s be clear: she can write them damned well. This book serves the same functions as a good 90s action movie. It’s just that I believe Ms. Taft is capable of much more than that. I give it a 4/5.
September 8, 2014
What if when you died you didn’t go straight to Hell (if the option wasn’t Heaven just yet)? What if those that died got a second chance in the after life to make things right and get a pass through the pearly, white gates?
The residents of Gehenna (and other parts of purgatory) have that opportunity. It’s not easy because despair, heartache and ruin run rampant in Gehenna, and most wind up as feral vampires as the disease slowly takes over their bodies.
Michael feels the beginning stages of being a vampire after spending centuries in Gehenna. One fateful night, he finds Elizabeth who wakes up in the wrong part of town where feral vampires find new humans tasty morsels. Michael saves her, but sacrifice is not one of his attributes, and it’s something neither one of them forgets.
Michael becomes the only suspect in a string of murders. Against her will, Elizabeth helps him only to learn he didn’t actually do it despite the evidence stacked up.
The concept of Gehenna was interesting. Redemption is still possible, but so is death – a final death. H.W. Taft also did a great job of creating a fearful villain in Michael’s father, Gabriel. His tortures were enough to make the reader feel uncomfortable – but only in a good way.
One issue I had – and it may just be an issue with me – is that too many movies and books have the main characters fall in love very quickly after going through a couple of stressful situations. What ever happened to just being attracted to someone? Does it always have to be about love?
So the love story just felt rushed.
Alas, in Gehenna love, however, is an important element because the path to redemption is paved with it.
While Gehenna was an enjoyable read, it did feel as though it ran a bit too long. Cutting down on some of the scenes and the circular arguments by the main characters throughout the first half of the novel could have made for a tidier read.
There were certain fun elements to the mystery behind the murders that were pinned on Michael such as who is actually pulling the strings, and realizing there is a much bigger world while most of the time it was focused on Gehenna. Taft could certainly have other stories that take place in this world without it getting stale.
**Originally written for "Books and Pals" book blog. May have received a free review copy. **
The residents of Gehenna (and other parts of purgatory) have that opportunity. It’s not easy because despair, heartache and ruin run rampant in Gehenna, and most wind up as feral vampires as the disease slowly takes over their bodies.
Michael feels the beginning stages of being a vampire after spending centuries in Gehenna. One fateful night, he finds Elizabeth who wakes up in the wrong part of town where feral vampires find new humans tasty morsels. Michael saves her, but sacrifice is not one of his attributes, and it’s something neither one of them forgets.
Michael becomes the only suspect in a string of murders. Against her will, Elizabeth helps him only to learn he didn’t actually do it despite the evidence stacked up.
The concept of Gehenna was interesting. Redemption is still possible, but so is death – a final death. H.W. Taft also did a great job of creating a fearful villain in Michael’s father, Gabriel. His tortures were enough to make the reader feel uncomfortable – but only in a good way.
One issue I had – and it may just be an issue with me – is that too many movies and books have the main characters fall in love very quickly after going through a couple of stressful situations. What ever happened to just being attracted to someone? Does it always have to be about love?
So the love story just felt rushed.
Alas, in Gehenna love, however, is an important element because the path to redemption is paved with it.
While Gehenna was an enjoyable read, it did feel as though it ran a bit too long. Cutting down on some of the scenes and the circular arguments by the main characters throughout the first half of the novel could have made for a tidier read.
There were certain fun elements to the mystery behind the murders that were pinned on Michael such as who is actually pulling the strings, and realizing there is a much bigger world while most of the time it was focused on Gehenna. Taft could certainly have other stories that take place in this world without it getting stale.
**Originally written for "Books and Pals" book blog. May have received a free review copy. **
June 28, 2012
Helen Taft's debut novel 'Gehenna' is an exciting, fast-paced ride through Hell - but a hell unlike any I'd encountered before. Set in the streets of a technologically advanced, complex and sprawling city with many unique districts and organisations (like vampire-hunters The Division for Civil Defence), 'Gehenna' skilfully weaves elements of Christian theology, supernatural mythology and straight-up crime thriller together in a gripping story of murder, death, redemption and love.
With flawed but appealing protagonists - Michael Thane, a man fighting a losing battle between his human and demon natures; Special Constable Elizabeth Grant, newly-deceased (with unexpected side-effects) and struggling to find her place in the afterlife - and a full cast of compelling support characters, 'Gehenna's real strength lies in Helen Taft's flowing, descriptive style of prose as she takes us on a race against time through a society on the brink of chaos, and uncovers a plot to damn all the souls in Gehenna forever.
A cracking read, 'Gehenna' confidently introduced concepts of religion that were completely new to me (but without ever crossing into preaching) which I found really added to the more familiar supernatural elements, and makes it stand amongst the recent spate of vampire-related novels. Taft's story kept me gripped from beginning to end, and I was engaged by a number of her secondary characters, who really add flavour to the city and its surrounds. The quasi-futuristic city of Gehenna itself came across as much more than just a backdrop to set the action in, and is as much of a vital player of this story as the main characters themselves. All in all, I found the novel exciting and enjoyable!
With flawed but appealing protagonists - Michael Thane, a man fighting a losing battle between his human and demon natures; Special Constable Elizabeth Grant, newly-deceased (with unexpected side-effects) and struggling to find her place in the afterlife - and a full cast of compelling support characters, 'Gehenna's real strength lies in Helen Taft's flowing, descriptive style of prose as she takes us on a race against time through a society on the brink of chaos, and uncovers a plot to damn all the souls in Gehenna forever.
A cracking read, 'Gehenna' confidently introduced concepts of religion that were completely new to me (but without ever crossing into preaching) which I found really added to the more familiar supernatural elements, and makes it stand amongst the recent spate of vampire-related novels. Taft's story kept me gripped from beginning to end, and I was engaged by a number of her secondary characters, who really add flavour to the city and its surrounds. The quasi-futuristic city of Gehenna itself came across as much more than just a backdrop to set the action in, and is as much of a vital player of this story as the main characters themselves. All in all, I found the novel exciting and enjoyable!
November 18, 2013
If you are damned when you die, you go to Gehenna. Where most who dwell there long for redemption and work hard toward it. Others are content to while their time away and will one day turn demon. Michael Thane hunts those demons that no one else will go after. Many years ago, Michael saved a new arrival to Gehenna, Liz Grant, an empath who is now a Special Constable. Now there is a killer on the loose and all signs point to Michael having lost the battle against the raging of the darkness. Now Michael and Liz are on the run, fighting those who should be helping them, while searching for the identity of the true villain. Of course, in Gehenna…there are many to choose from. ‘Gehenna’ features an outstanding cast of characters and compelling supernatural action. Ms. Taft’s debut novel is well-developed in both the world she’s created and the characters that populate it. ‘Gehenna’ is a novel which has carved out its own niche is the heavily populated vampire genre!
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