From Hell, With Love

by Bryce Oakley

Ramona Greenbriar did not mean to summon a demon.

Divorced, academically disgraced, and working retail at a fake magic shop — she has enough complications. Her magic has never once done what it was supposed to, which is probably how the demon got in. That, and the grimoire came out of a donation box alongside a moldy sandwich. It was always going to go badly.

Enter Zara — three hundred years old, impeccably suited, and going absolutely nowhere until the next new moon, whether either of them likes it or not.

Which means explaining to her roommates why there's definitely-not-a-demon in the apartment, trying not to notice that Zara is extremely hot, adorably curious about the mortal world, and treats Ramona like she's someone worth the trouble.

Falling for a demon wasn't the plan. But then again, nothing in Ramona's life has ever gone to plan. Why start now?

From Hell, With Love is a witty, slow-burn spicy sapphic romantasy

forced proximity that gets intimatefake dating a demona magical tether that broadcasts your feelings (including the inconvenient ones)a possessive demon who gives you her complete, undivided, three-hundred-years-of-patience attention and means every word of itfound family who absolutely will not mind their businessand the dangerous realization that being truly known might ruin you for anything less

Genres: Lesbian, Romance, Fantasy, Paranormal, LGBT, Queer, Witches

400 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 3, 2026

About the author

Bryce grew up in the mountains of Colorado with a taste for adventure and a head full of clouds. She never grew out of either. She lives in Denver with her partner, two adorable rescue dogs, and a very opinionated cat.

Reviews

[Sapphic Books]

2.5 rounded up.

I know a lot of people loved this one, but I just found it unengaging. I ended up skimming a large chunk of it.

[Menestrella]

Short one as I am abroad these days. I enjoyed the banter and the romantic connection... and the trope "found family".

I hope we will get more novels about the other characters....

I am too curious about Cammie.

Ps. Some spicy scenes.... a demon and a witch? Can only be hot 🔥🔥🔥

4.5 stars

[OnTheHedge]

Loved this book. But felt like who/what Cammie really is had to be addressed properly. That feels like a loose end.

[MJ]

4.5 Stars

Oooo I really enjoyed this!! Bryce did it again. I love a witchy magical book and I loved this take on magic and demons! It was so fun, witty and made me laugh. But it also had emotions and obstacles. Poor Ramona had so much to overcome from her past, starting over and not where she wanted to be in life. But she had such an amazing group of friends/roommates, even if she didn’t let them in right away!

Her and Zara were perfect! Their relationship was funny and sweet and steamy 😏

The side characters were all so fun and had such unique personalities 😍 (and the animals!)

Written in Third Person with 1x POV. Magic, Forced Proximity, Witch/Demon, Fake Dating, Found Family, One Bed. 6x Spicy Scenes (including bonus epilogue).

[Samantha]

Rating: 4.25 stars

Ramona is 35, divorced, the black sheep of her witchy family, and feeling like her life has come to a dead-end when she accidentally summons and tethers herself to a (hot) demon. And Zara (the aforementioned hot demon) is a refreshingly written take on a demon. She doesn't come across as an archetype, instead she's confident, loyal, and grounded. I had a really good time with this story and it seems there will be more to this world, so I can't wait to continue on.

read if you enjoy:
🖤 paranormal romance
🖤 forced proximity
🖤 found family

[Jake]

Signs of AI?

There’s some serious signs of AI generation. Which is frustrating since I like Bryce Oakley’s work, and if this is true, is a huge disappointment.

[wouldratherbereading]

Absolutely my favourite Bryce Oakley book so far! Funny, spicy, fab MCs and great world-building!

[s]

oh theres like a ton of ai in this.

like ALOT.

[Elizabeth Knowles]

This was amazing!!! Exactly what I needed after a reading slump. Not just a romance book, but it talks about family, greif, betrayal, self-doubt.
You can tell the author is educatrd in magic and loves what she does, and that made the story do much better too!!
Relationships between the main FMC and her flatmates and how it evolutionised was beautiful.
The romance was sweet and yearning and the ending had me in tears on the train. This is definitely a must read for me.

[Shannon👻]

Ramona got her life back…… from hell.

[zagzig]

I had a whole thing about how Ramona's broken magic represented neurodivergence, and how she was going to refuse to break the curse for reasons that didn't really make sense in-universe but fit the metaphor. and then she broke the curse and it gave everyone superpowers and life was immeasurably better for everyone so I'm choosing to believe I was way off the mark with that

Ramona is a janky witch who's given up on everything after her divorce and a minor incident where she magically attacked her ex-wife's affair partner (I feel like everyone kind of glossed over that), and then she accidentally summons a demon, Zara. it's fun, Ramona has a lovely found family and a complicated but shows up when she needs them actual family, there's some decent spice, and a wonderful witchy vibe. and the supporting cast is coming back apparently which I'm excited for, I'm a fan of the magic worldbuilding

it felt like the book made some connections that didn't really land? possibly because I was reading into slash projecting the neurodivergence thing for a while, but like the book goes really hard on how the curse ruined everything and now the curse is gone everything will be better. but also Ramona did magically assault that lady, that was with intent and forethought and everything. but rather than go into that we instead get a thing at the end where Ramona tells off her ex-wife and partner and they're all impotently mad so I guess that's fine.

and the resolution with Zara felt like "the book is already over 400 pages let's just sprinkle in some foreshadowing and then jump to the end when everything is fine"

but also there's a strap made out of demon magic so

[Tilly]

I don't have an issue with authors using AI to check spellings and grammar, but this book was filled with AI-isms that are obvious to anyone who uses those platforms.

One or two I could get over, but they are in every single chapter. I saw a thread post where the author responded to another review and said she doesn't use it, but just because you say it doesn't make it so. It's obvious it has been used.

And look, I'm not saying you shouldn't read the book. If you like the sound of the tropes and blurb, then go for it. And I don't think this is the case for her entire catalog of books. But this particular one absolutely has AI language and formatting throughout, which is so disappointing.

[3DKing]

Witches, Demons, bureaucracy, curses, rituals and familiars. Found family, summonings, finding ones selfworth and crashing the establishment - seriously, what else do you need for a super cute story about a witch who gets life-help from hell?

[Amanda]

I really really enjoyed this one. It's one of those books that just grabbed me immediately and then was a ton of fun for the whole book (even the points where I was sobbing because there were some BIG EMOTIONS). I'm a sucker for a good accidentally summoned a (hot) demon trope, but this was my first sapphic version and honestly, all others are gonna have a high bar to meet. I loved Ramona and in many ways she was me. She has been through it and is working on trying to just fix her life but truly everything that can go wrong does go wrong for her, including summoning Zara. And Zara is a demon at point where she needs a shake up, Ramona is just that for her. They have chemistry IMMEDIATELY, but due to circumstances the burn is slow while they learn about each other and they truly know each other before they realize oops it's all feelings.

There's moments of humor and levity, and moments of great hurt and comfort. It just really has it all. Plus the found family is absolute perfection and I would appreciate a book for each of them please and thank you.

[aphrodite]

I’m beginning to think writing a good sapphic demon summoning romance is impossible considering the two I’ve read (this & The Devil She Knows) have equally pathetic FMCs and underwhelming “powerful demons”

reviews are also saying ai was used. I can’t confirm nor deny this but if that’s true it proves that ai is indeed useless, harmful, and unable to make a boring book interesting.


the shadow sex scene was hot tho so one star for that!

[Klaudia]

This was such a let down for me, but not even from a story standpoint. I actually thought the story was quite well crafted, if incredibly predictable, and had a lot of fun with it, initially. Key word being initially because did someone else write the latter half of this book? What happened to the writing? There were so many instances, too many to count, where words were just repeated within the same sentence, whole paragraphs were repeated on the same page etc. I don't know if it's an ebook fault, but I doubt it. There was a whole scene missing during the Gala portion, where they suddenly just teleport from the middle of the dance floor to a room, that we next chapter find out was a storage closet??? It was so jarring I thought I was having a stroke, they genuinely were standing in the main ballroom and then two sentences later Felix is opening a door. It made me wonder if the book was rushed toward the end.
The thing that pissed me off the most was how many goddamn times it said "through the tether", WE GET IT THEY'RE CONNECTED. I don't need to read about it every other paragraph good lord. Deadass, I predict it was used at least 50 times. It also made the book so uninteresting since no emotion was ever shown, especially as it pertains to Zara, we just had it spelled out in a listical of emotions and that was it. Like thanks for telling me every two seconds that Zara was worried, couldn't have shown me that through actions or even facial expressions.
Also, what was the point of Cammie? The whole book was setting up to either her being supernatural and lying about it, or turning supernatural AS WAS IMPLIED AT THE END, but then nothing comes of it? Absolutely nothing. No resolution. So again, what was the point? She could be taken out of the story and absolutely NOTHING changes. Which to be honest goes for most characters except the two leads.
It just became an utter slog to get through, I beg either hire an editor or take more care in re-editing. I tend to give more grace to self-published/kindle unlimited books since they don't have a team behind them, but this was genuinely egregious.

[Myles Reads]

This book had a very interesting concept, which is why I decided to read it.

It had an amazing start, and the characters were great, except Marcus. He's a dick.

But about halfway through the book, the writing started to feel AI-generated. I actually had to pause reading and check the reviews to see if anyone else had noticed it too. And yes, there were a few people who brought it up, although there was also someone defending the author's integrity and claiming it wasn't.

I'm aware there's no definitive way of knowing whether a book is AI-generated, and that it ultimately comes down to the reader's perception. But from my point of view, it felt AI-generated. From the middle of the book to the end, I found myself cringing and constantly rolling my eyes at how repetitive the writing became.

With that said, the book was still very interesting to read. If you're a fan of The Devil She Knows by Alexandria Bellefleur, you'll probably enjoy this too, as long as you can overlook the possibility that it feels AI-generated.

I honestly thought this was going to be a 4.5-star read, but it just went downhill once I got halfway through the book.

My final rating is 3 stars.

[Issy Waldrom]

Loved it! Exactly what I wanted from a witch x demon story, with a strong focus on the supernatural/fantasy side of things as the characters slowly fall in love, grow and heal, and find themselves in situations that they didn't expect. Even better, things are not quite what they seem. plenty of surprises along the way as Ramona and Zara work towards trying to severing the accidental tether that formed. Their friends are a colourful bunch (and I'd love to see a story or two focusing on some of them), and the setting is rich and amusing in equal measures. I had a lot of fun with this book and will definitely be reading more of their stories.

[Autumn Lanning]

It was PERFECT. Zara and Ramona are the OTP. I laughed a lot, I cried at the severance, and I cooed at everything Wick did.

This book was every bit as good as The Devil She Knows, same vibes and fantastic witty banter.

The pacing was phenomenal. Ramona EARNS every single thing that happens to her by the end. And the found family vibes are off the CHARTS.

I felt a lot with this book, which is what the very best books are supposed to do.

5/5 Perfect score. No complaints.

[Natalie]

TLDR AI SLOP avoid and blacklisting this author

The writing style was annoying from the start. Too quirky and trying too hard to be funny, and quite repetitive. At first I was like, maybe this is just bad writing or bad editing, or not my taste, and I wanted to give it a chance and finish it. But there was so much repetitive and unnatural phrasing that by the end I was pretty certain AI was heavily used in writing this. This is a big accusation and for a DNF review I would just say "AI SLOP" and move on but since I bothered to finish this book I thought I would give some evidence to support why I think AI was used to write this:

---

- Tons of fragmented sentences: "Like she belonged in her own skin. Like she wasn't broken. Had never been broken, not really. Like she was powerful."

- repeating the same information (emotions, dialogue, thoughts, whatever) over and over just said in different ways

- more similes than any human could ever think up on their own. The word "like" was used 629 fucking times! This was my biggest red flag

- a suspicious amount of "not ___ but _____" and "not because ____ but because ____"

- a general soullessness and pointlessness to the writing, like a lack of true human emotional capacity or touch. Emphasis on the wrong things.

- generic and soulless everything from the characters to the world building to the sex scenes, giving nothing.

- side characters all acting and talking the same like the same person wearing different skins

- a few weird jokes that actually just didn't make sense and I reread a few times trying to understand before realizing it's just nonsense

- small inconsistencies in the writing:

1. Zara summons a spoon to eat her spaghetti in one paragraph and is eating it with a fork in the next few paragraphs.

2. Later, twice in the same sex scene, Zara discovers how wet Ramona is by feeling with her fingers and comments on it. Both her comments were almost the same too so it stood out a lot and I don't understand how it was missed:

"Fuck," Zara whispered. "You really are—"

And then like a few paragraphs later

"Oh," Zara breathed. "You're already—"

Literally like author generated these two bits of dialogue with AI and instead of remembering to cut one she just left them both in even though it makes 0 sense for Zara to be shocked a second time that Ramona is still wet after already realizing she was wet 30 seconds ago

---

You can read this and decide for yourself but please don't give the author money that she hasn't earned. Save your money for authors who actually wrote their books. Even the worst authors and 12 year olds writing terrible fanfiction on Wattpad deserve your money and respect more than this. This is a known author with lots of books and maybe she didn't use AI in those, but her use of it here is undeniable and also unforgivable.

[Chelsea Pitsos]

OMG I LOVED EVERY SINGLE SECOND OF THIS, AND I ONLY WANT MORE!!!!! After over 400 pages, you’d think I would be ready for it to wrap up — but I was honestly dreading it coming to an end!

Bryce Oakley is slowly becoming a new fav author, the way she writes her characters (both main and side) has me in chokehold! I really am a sucker for found family, and it comes at no surprise to me that this was the perfect group of misfits! I really hope there are future works in this universe, because I need to know more about Cammie!

This book had a little bit of everything: fantasy elements, forced proximity, top tier banter, tension, and suspense! Would HIGHLY recommend this one to anybody interested in a suspenseful cozy fantasy with a witch that accidentally summons a demon! 😈

Spice: 🔥🔥🔥

[vianny]

From Hell With Love is the coziest little fall read. It follows a 35 year old witch, excommunicated from her coven and working a tourist-trap magic shop, who accidentally summons a demon. What unfolds from there is the sweetest sapphic romance, full of found family energy, and it is pure feel good from start to finish.

I really enjoyed this one!! The romance had me kicking my feet, the found family energy is everything, and women in their 30s getting their own swoony love story felt so good. It is the kind of book that wraps you up like a warm blanket.

You'll enjoy this if you love:

-sapphic romance
-witch x demon
-women in their 30s
-found family
-cozy fall reads

Thanks to Libro.fm for the listening copy!

[MissAlice]

Curses, and Demons, and witches- oh my sapphic little heart.

Framilies and families converge to make this book a fabulous read. Sprinkled with some devilish intent and familiars being larger than life characters- you are going to giggle with their antics. Got some steamy scenes, even in small spaces, and the heat from the MCs resonates off the page… or it is my phones battery telling me reading the book in one sitting wasn’t my best life choice, but I digress.

Grab this book, pull up your familiar, snug down in some blankets and get lost in the magic of a happily ever after.

[Emily]

Oh, I loved this one! A sapphic demon romance in time for spooky season? YES PLEASE. I loved how both characters not only grow together, they work to heal on a personal level.

My only qualm is I felt like the fox could have played a bigger role in the story. It seemed like his plotline would lead somewhere, but he joined the story so late and then kind of fizzled out. I would be very okay with a sequel just to see more of him.

*Thank you to the publisher and Libro.fm for providing me with this ALC

[Matthew]

Ambitious, magical, and hot!

Bryce Oakley doing paranormal romance is the thing I didn't know I needed but now can't imagine a world without. The magical plot was no mere window dressing for the romance, rather a fully fleshed out adventure with love, betrayal, longing, suffering as well as healing. I cried. I laughed out loud. I wished it wasn't over; this needs a sequel for the other coven members NOW please.

With love, Matthew

[Poppy || Monster Lover]

Ramona was such the disaster witch in a tough spot in life, and accidentally summoned a demon to top it off. Lucky for her Zara was reasonable. They ended up causing more problems than planned and went through some heisty activities together. Their love story was very sweet and they both supported and believed in one another. The roommates were a nice touch.

Spice: 3/5

Triggers: emotional and psychological abuse by parent, frequent mentions of hell, curse, loss of job, financial insecurity, past cheating wife, past magical accident, attempted murder of side character by ghosts

[Nicole Moon]

this was AMAZING!!!! i've been desperately wanting to find more paranormal romance and i loved this so much, and literally devoured it in two days. it has:

🪄 a witch who struggles with magic and works at a fake magic shop + a demon she accidentally summons and gets magically tethered to
🪄 obviously lots of forced proximity (they can't stay more than 60 feet away from each other)
🪄 fake dating
🪄 swoonworthy, steamy, and addicting sapphic romance
🪄 finding yourself

[Jacqueline Silverwood]

I received a free advance reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Let me start by saying; forced proximity is the best troupe and the way Bryce gave that idea a fun twist was refreshening.

This is a third person, sapphic romatasy, that will wrap around your heart, and settle, like it was always meant to be there.

We start our story with Ramona Greenbriar, who is introduced as a divorced, failed witch, now working at a fake magic shop, when things go bad for her, and she quickly plummets to rock bottom. This is where Ramona decides to double down on her nonexistent luck, and casts a spell, accidentally tethering a demon to herself.

“I’m going to die in an over sized t-shirt that says Witch Happens.”

Enter Arareth “Zara”, the afore mentioned demon, from Hell, who is now tethered with Ramona, a tether that lets them feel everything the other is feeling. Zara is calculated, precise, and organized, the exact opposite of our chaotic Ramona. The two having to work together, alongside a slew of lovable side characters, (I cannot wait to see more of!) to figure it all out, was fun and easy to fall in love with.

This was a perfectly paced, cozy, sapphic, opposites-attract romantasy, filled with love, acceptance, found family, and complex family dynamics. I laughed, I smiled like a giddy idiot, I cried. Ramona’s character arch is consistent but difficult for her to accept and as a reader you really feel her growth, which is made stronger with Zara’s constant, reliable presence throughout. You can see when and where both of their mentalities shift and how sometimes we all just need to take a step back, we need to let our people stand next to us and to share the crushing weight of who we think we are, and let the people who actually see us, remind us of who we actually are.

“It was the most ordinary thing in the world and it was extraordinary.”

I love this universe. I am feral to continue being part of this world. When you pick this book up, you will not be disappointed.

[iz]

The plot bored me a bit. I loved the concept, yet it was not how I imagined it.

[Jossie 💖]

3.5✨