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Hellbent & Heartfirst
What could be better than a one-time rodeo cowboy with a beat-up pickup truck who wears his jeans like a down home boy? To Jacyn Boaz, he seems like the perfect distraction from her guilty conscience and the stress of working with relief organizations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Does it matter that Jimmy Wayne Broadus with his “Don’t Mess With Texas” bumper sticker hunts demons in the night? Surprisingly, Jacyn finds that they make a good team. Until the day that Jimmy Wayne disappears. Tired of waiting around, Jacyn moves on to Nashville. But her strange new life follows her in form of a witch up to no good. And how will she handle her one-time one night stand when Jimmy Wayne comes back?
- GenresParanormal Romance
336 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 1, 2008
23 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 12, 2008
I've read some really weird books in my life. "Hellbent & Heartfirst" by Kassandra Sims is right on up there. This book is marketed as a paranormal romance. The paranormal is there, but I really didn't think it was very romantic.
Jacyn is a disillusioned relief worker trying to help disconnected family members after Katrina. Jimmy Wayne is a former rodeo rider and current hunter of 'bad things'. I'm not sure I can really tell you more about the plot as I still don't understand it! They're together and apart and I can't tell you why they got together or why they were apart or why they got back together. There were witches, lamias, voodoo practitioners, leprechauns and brownies.
Sometimes being so OCD about books is the pits. It made me finish this one even when I realized I didn't understand much of anything in it.
Jacyn is a disillusioned relief worker trying to help disconnected family members after Katrina. Jimmy Wayne is a former rodeo rider and current hunter of 'bad things'. I'm not sure I can really tell you more about the plot as I still don't understand it! They're together and apart and I can't tell you why they got together or why they were apart or why they got back together. There were witches, lamias, voodoo practitioners, leprechauns and brownies.
Sometimes being so OCD about books is the pits. It made me finish this one even when I realized I didn't understand much of anything in it.
August 23, 2008
Hellbent and Heartfirst was a book I picked up because I enjoyed the author's book Falling Upwards. Both books were published by Tor under Paranormal Romance, but Falling Upwards had more of a contemporary fantasy feel and less emphasis on the romance. Meanwhile, Hellbent and Heartfirst spends much more time on the two main characters and less on the "paranormal". The writing was interesting and intelligent but the plot had some problems. Our protagonists fight paranormal creatures in the South, but these scenes are really short and anti-climactic. Once they were over I was left thinking - "Was that it? That was easy." and there doesn't seem to be a real resolution. I felt unsatisfied. Some things never get explained - like Jacyn's luck. The book really was about was two southerners who meet, fall in love, and hang out with friends and family. But with a dash of killing baddies. The rest of it was this slow meandering courtship without very much conflict amongst bars, barbeques, and house parties. It was like reading about party-kids settling down except there is a supernatural tint to it all. The relationship was very sweetly described and I ended up feeling like the two were meant to be together, but I thought the author kept trying to convince the reader of this after the reader was already sold.
More detailed review here at my book blog - http://janicu.livejournal.com/31874.html
More detailed review here at my book blog - http://janicu.livejournal.com/31874.html
April 21, 2021
I loved all of the characters. Every character felt real and unique and special, and the two main characters were so good together. But the second half of the book came to an end and made absolutly no since, and I have no clue what just happened. There are so many loose ends that I can't even really put together an answer to how the book ends. The first half of the book was pretty good, and the characters are awesome, but the plot kind of fell alway at the end and from reading what others have written, no one has a clue what was going on.
June 15, 2011
The heroine is a college professor who's gone home to the Biloxi area after Katrina to recover from her divorce and aimlessness by helping others, or something of the sort. She meets a guy at a bar--he's younger, drop-dead gorgeous and out of her league, but he seems somehow attracted to her. She's trying to help reunite people with their missing children, and there's a woman in hysterics because her little boy was staying with her aunt, and now the aunt says he was never there. Turns out that the guy's in town chasing boogey-men--a lamia, actually--snake woman that eats children and messes with people's minds--and the missing child is probably a victim. He tells the heroine what he does, and there's some scenes with her trying to wrap her mind around the fact that things that go bump really do. She goes with him to a voodoo witch and takes part in the magic that lets them track the lamia, and they kill it and run. I think the "hooking up" scenes take place before they visit the voodoo people.
She's astonished that he's interested in her, 'cause he's younger and so good-looking. And she has this luck--it swings from astonishingly good to horrifically bad, to balance out overall--and she's sure that the luck of having a guy like him will end in a horrible breakup. Then the book jumps ahead eight months.
Jimmy Wayne's been on the road for five of those months, and Jacyn (which I never really knew how to pronounce, and kept pulling an 'L' in it, and thinking Jaclyn) has moved to Nashville to room with an old friend and get over JW being gone. He called frequently, but never made it back to town. But she's still longing. He's longing too, and sure he's really screwed things up with her, and it breaks his heart, and he doesn't know why he hasn't gone back to her, but he hasn't, and can't seem to, and he's somewhere in Tennessee to meet a witch. Not a human who messes with magic, but a different species. And she breaks a compulsion that was put on him. One that was intended for Jacyn, but hit him instead (because of her luck, they assume), and has driven him away from her. And she tells him the murderer he's after is in Nashville. Where of course the murderer is hanging out with Jacyn, and they stumble across each other again. Of course. (Her luck acting again.) They defeat the bad guys--but I'm not sure exactly how, or exactly who does what. This part was really vague and confusing.
I liked the book. Sims writes some really beautiful, evocative stuff. But the paranormal elements... weren't real paranormal. The descriptions tended to be vague, which was strange, because Sims was so vivid about most everything else. She did describe the imp pretty well, but what Jacyn thought about the magic wasn't clear. And in the grand finale climax, the magic seems to be done by somebody who's been present (I'm not absolutely sure he's the one doing the magic), but his magical ability pops out of nowhere, hasn't even been foreshadowed. And Jacyn does some big magic, but what happens, or what she thinks/feels about it is really vague. Honestly, her feelings for Jimmy Wayne and his feelings for her are the only things that feel real at the end of the book--which may be what Sims was going for. I'm not sure about that either.
All of which sounds like I didn't like the book, but I did. Really. It wasn't until after I finished it and started to think about it and about what I would write here that it occurred to me that the magic stuff was kind of vague and unreal and confusing. And that this may have been Sims's intent. Either way, it was an enjoyable ride, and it would be interesting to read more books in this universe, more about Jacyn and J.W., but who knows if that's going to happen.
She's astonished that he's interested in her, 'cause he's younger and so good-looking. And she has this luck--it swings from astonishingly good to horrifically bad, to balance out overall--and she's sure that the luck of having a guy like him will end in a horrible breakup. Then the book jumps ahead eight months.
Jimmy Wayne's been on the road for five of those months, and Jacyn (which I never really knew how to pronounce, and kept pulling an 'L' in it, and thinking Jaclyn) has moved to Nashville to room with an old friend and get over JW being gone. He called frequently, but never made it back to town. But she's still longing. He's longing too, and sure he's really screwed things up with her, and it breaks his heart, and he doesn't know why he hasn't gone back to her, but he hasn't, and can't seem to, and he's somewhere in Tennessee to meet a witch. Not a human who messes with magic, but a different species. And she breaks a compulsion that was put on him. One that was intended for Jacyn, but hit him instead (because of her luck, they assume), and has driven him away from her. And she tells him the murderer he's after is in Nashville. Where of course the murderer is hanging out with Jacyn, and they stumble across each other again. Of course. (Her luck acting again.) They defeat the bad guys--but I'm not sure exactly how, or exactly who does what. This part was really vague and confusing.
I liked the book. Sims writes some really beautiful, evocative stuff. But the paranormal elements... weren't real paranormal. The descriptions tended to be vague, which was strange, because Sims was so vivid about most everything else. She did describe the imp pretty well, but what Jacyn thought about the magic wasn't clear. And in the grand finale climax, the magic seems to be done by somebody who's been present (I'm not absolutely sure he's the one doing the magic), but his magical ability pops out of nowhere, hasn't even been foreshadowed. And Jacyn does some big magic, but what happens, or what she thinks/feels about it is really vague. Honestly, her feelings for Jimmy Wayne and his feelings for her are the only things that feel real at the end of the book--which may be what Sims was going for. I'm not sure about that either.
All of which sounds like I didn't like the book, but I did. Really. It wasn't until after I finished it and started to think about it and about what I would write here that it occurred to me that the magic stuff was kind of vague and unreal and confusing. And that this may have been Sims's intent. Either way, it was an enjoyable ride, and it would be interesting to read more books in this universe, more about Jacyn and J.W., but who knows if that's going to happen.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 7, 2023
They meet one night in a bar in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. The heroine- pretty, listless with her hair in brains and wearing a t-shirt and flip flops. The hero-beautiful, charming, wearing a cowboy hat and possessing a smile to melt the hardest of hearts. Drunk, hot and young they steal away from the crowd and spend the night in the front seat of his pickup truck. The heroine has a track record of picking the shallow handsome man-just look at her ex-husband. But though the hero may appear to that stereotype play boy he's anything but. He shows up at her house party and instead of feeling that sinking feelings of seeing a one-night stand again, the heroine is happy. He may be a smooth talker and with a Texas accent to die for, but she can see glimpses of a deeper character behind the smile and flirtations. It's that soul that attracts her.
The hero is tired of being labelled a playboy. He's not the wham bam thank you ma'am type and when he sees a woman he likes, he wants only her. And he likes the heroine. He can't see to think about anything else or anyone else when she's around and every single second spent in her company makes him crave to know her better. It's this desire for her to mean something much more to him than just a girlfriend that makes him confide in her about his profession. He's a paranormal hunter of dangerous creatures. He shows her proof of pixies, vampires and Voodoo in hopes that she could be a partner to him, someone to share his life with. And she indeed likes the adventure. They succeed in killing the creature feeding off children and life looks good...Then everything changes. Or rather the hero changes. He becomes distant and the heroine finds herself slowly closing herself off from him until it's 8 months later and she's cut ties. But that doesn't mean she's ever stopped thinking about him, wondering where he is and if he's okay. And then out of the blue he shows up at the bar again. The hero has recently discovered he's been under the spell of which meant to hurt the heroine who the creature has targeted for some reason. And now that he's able to see her face again, the hero cannot imagine a world without the heroine in it and he refuses to allow anything or anyone separate them again.
I enjoyed this book but to a point. I would classify it more towards a contemporary paranormal romance rather than a traditional paranormal romance. Honestly, most of the book was sex (albeit sweet, sexy and passionate sex) as well as drinking. It seems like the characters were either drinking or fucking. And yes, they had a great chemistry and the writing style had a smooth easy flow to it but I still found myself a bit confused at times. The plot felt like it had been haphazardly tossed together and as such it was jerky and unpolished at times. But regardless I loved the characters and the easy and comfort they had around one another. They had a way of talking to each other than showed the respect and love they had for one another and the idea of drinking in New Orleans and having that lifestyle was a welcomed one. Maybe not the best novel out there but I can't say that I didn't enjoy it.
The hero is tired of being labelled a playboy. He's not the wham bam thank you ma'am type and when he sees a woman he likes, he wants only her. And he likes the heroine. He can't see to think about anything else or anyone else when she's around and every single second spent in her company makes him crave to know her better. It's this desire for her to mean something much more to him than just a girlfriend that makes him confide in her about his profession. He's a paranormal hunter of dangerous creatures. He shows her proof of pixies, vampires and Voodoo in hopes that she could be a partner to him, someone to share his life with. And she indeed likes the adventure. They succeed in killing the creature feeding off children and life looks good...Then everything changes. Or rather the hero changes. He becomes distant and the heroine finds herself slowly closing herself off from him until it's 8 months later and she's cut ties. But that doesn't mean she's ever stopped thinking about him, wondering where he is and if he's okay. And then out of the blue he shows up at the bar again. The hero has recently discovered he's been under the spell of which meant to hurt the heroine who the creature has targeted for some reason. And now that he's able to see her face again, the hero cannot imagine a world without the heroine in it and he refuses to allow anything or anyone separate them again.
I enjoyed this book but to a point. I would classify it more towards a contemporary paranormal romance rather than a traditional paranormal romance. Honestly, most of the book was sex (albeit sweet, sexy and passionate sex) as well as drinking. It seems like the characters were either drinking or fucking. And yes, they had a great chemistry and the writing style had a smooth easy flow to it but I still found myself a bit confused at times. The plot felt like it had been haphazardly tossed together and as such it was jerky and unpolished at times. But regardless I loved the characters and the easy and comfort they had around one another. They had a way of talking to each other than showed the respect and love they had for one another and the idea of drinking in New Orleans and having that lifestyle was a welcomed one. Maybe not the best novel out there but I can't say that I didn't enjoy it.
November 22, 2010
I have mixed feelings about this book. Part of me really liked it and the other part of me felt like I was left with a big question mark hanging over my head. This is a new author for me and I was drawn by the cover and the blurb on the back. It sounded and looked really good. The romance was there, I really liked Jacyn and Jimmy Wayne's characters and how they were just drawn together. It felt like the book was centered on the romance with things happening in the background. Kind of like I was watching it out of the corner of my eye. Usually, that's not a problem for me, I love a book that is centered on romance alone, I just don't think this romance was strong enough to be a stand alone in a book. It seemed like there should be more going on in the story, more intrigue and danger, boundries that needed to be crossed. All the action and mystery I was expecting, just seemed fuzzy. It was like it was building up to something, then flat lining. I can't say it fell flat, just taperd off because I think it just needed a little more....something??? Example, the story get's going and they are going to confront the creature that is eating children and your expecting something big to happen and your anxious and ready for it. Then it's over and done with in a paragraph and moves on. Now, I like paranormal and I like weird and I like finding a book with a storyline that is unique. This had so much potential. By the cover art, you think that demon shape in the background is an intrical part of the story, but it's barely mentioned. Everything leads up to the events at the end of the book, and am once again I'm anxious to see what happens and everything happens so fast I felt like I had whiplash. What??? I had to re-read it three times and I was still and am still confused on what I just read. That is where the question mark over my head is pulsing in bright neon now. What??? What did I just read on the last few pages, I have no idea, you tell me. What happened at the end? I don't get it. The explanations didn't make sense to me and I felt like I was missing something. How exactly did the bracelet come off Tyler and get on her wrist? She was floating, when did that happen? What exaxtly happened with Avery? How and when did Travis get the necklace? Teague is what??? Wait, go back to the last scene in the kitchen and my question mark just grew 2 inches. The ending makes me wondering if she has or had plans for a sequel. I like my endings packgaged nicely and tied in a bow, but am wondering what happens now? Do they find a way to get the bracelet off? I'd like to know. Now that I listed everything that bothered me, I have to say I gave it three stars because I really did like the hero and heroine. I loved their chemistry and I thought the bedroom scenes were hot and sensual. Now if anyone can answer my questions, especially the last chapter, It would be greatly appreciated. Maybe I'm just not getting it?
December 31, 2010
Makes me nervous seeing the low reviews on this book. I bought it for a $1. at our library surplus sale. It is a pretty steamy romance - definitely adult material. I'm enjoying it, though, because it is set in New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina - so I can relate to the story - having been to New Orleans. The paranormal aspect isn't too heavy, yet - just voodoo and such. I'm enjoying it, for now. Nice, relaxing romance. :)
September 22, 2011
Sims has a way with whimsy, descriptions, and sex scenes, though her plots tend to get a bit murky. Still, I loved the intensity of this one and the charisma (if such a thing is visible in a book! ;P ). The characters became very much alive to me and the author wrote their byplay very well together.
May 25, 2008
I had a hard time sticking with this book. A good book for me is one that I hate to put down. This one I had to make myself go back to.
July 15, 2013
This was a turd. The story was choppy and at times I have to piece it together. Really not a great choice for a summer read.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews