Step one: add some gasoline. Step two: light a match. Step three: watch the devil’s house burn.
As far as plans go, Sandra Moore rather likes hers. It’s simple. It gets the job done. It reduces the devil’s house to smoldering ruins.
Life is good—at least for the year she has left of it, assuming the devil doesn’t kill her first.
Instead of the quick end and the retribution she deserves, Sandra gets the client from hell for the case of a lifetime, one that could forever change the war between the heavens and the devil’s many hells.
RJ Blain suffers from a Moleskine journal obsession, a pen fixation, and a terrible tendency to pun without warning.
When she isn't playing pretend, she likes to think she's a cartographer and a sumi-e painter. In reality, she herds cats and a husband, and obeys the commands of Tsu Dhi, the great warrior fish.
In her spare time, she daydreams about being a spy. Should that fail, her contingency plan involves tying her best of enemies to spinning wheels and quoting James Bond villains until she is satisfied.
I need to vent, I am so confused, this gave me nothing it was supposed to -
NO SEX - I mean, come on now, after all the mention of being bed buddies there is NO SEX! No foreplay, nothing. You're told a lot about how good he is in bed and how they're going to be so tired and won't cope etc but then it is all skipped over! WTH. That there is bullshit! This would be more understandable if the majority of the book hadn't lead up to this happening.
Comedy - what comedy?! I did not snicker once let alone laugh or grin or even get a little twitch near my mouth at how amusing this was. The women are spunky and quirky but I didn't see any comedy and seeing as it's in the series title I expected it. Silly me.
Repetitive - I legitimately lost count of how many times 'bed buddy' was mentioned. I think after the 60th mention in a row we get the idea.
Slow - I thought the build-up was going somewhere but you get a lot of nothing and then things you want to know about are skipped over. I just kept reading because I thought this HAS to go somewhere and we just must get to see what she is.
Should be fun. A new addition to Satin’s family, another woman that doesn’t take any shit. An origin story for Sandra, not a standalone, so looking forward to plenty more crazy to come. By the end it felt like Sandra had only just passed the starting line. Will be interesting to see what she can do at full strength. Not sure about Jonas, he just seems like he’s there for the ride. Favourite part was the aversion.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
R.J Blain is a hit or miss for me, and this, sadly, definitely fit into the second category.
Warning to new readers: while this is billed as a new series, it ties into her Romantic Comedy With a Body Count quite a lot. I wouldn’t advise you to start here.
I love how often that phrase is used. Every time it came up, I smiled and chuckled a bit. This book was a really good start to the series, and we got to see some new and interesting characters as well as revisiting some old friends. I like that it was made clear that romance isn't absolutely necessary for a relationship to be successful, and exploring different outlooks and views on relationships. I definitely look forward to the next book, even if the main characters are different. Although, I do think that we will get to see Sandra and her inccubus again since the book was left pretty open ended.
This is the first book in a trilogy. We get to spend time with some of my favorite characters from the magical romantic comedy with a body count series such as Lucifer, Darlene, Diana and Darian. In this Sandra gets hired As an intern by Lucifer and gets her mate in Jonas, Darlene’s brother. They investigate the people running the labs discovered by Diana and Darian.
I had been impatiently waiting to read this story since I first saw the pre-order and I do not regret the purchase at all! It was fun to see how R.J. Blain managed to tie together seemingly unrelated plots from the Magical Comedy series and I can only imagine how this series will end. Now I just have to impatiently wait for the next book in the series....
It was exciting to read about Jonas after meeting him in Darlene’s book. And there’s a lot of interaction with Lucy, for those that love his character. The main story plot does end on a cliffhanger, but it ends in a good place that while you want to find out what happens next, you aren’t agonizing over characters’ fates. There’s hints about some possible appearances from other characters, so here’s hoping we get to see some favorites!
Really enjoy this authors writing style! Entertaining and left me snickering throughout the book. I totally agree with the main characters terrorists, animal abusers, rapists and such totally need to dies and because f****ing assholes to be played with in hell.
I only wish these books were ten times longer. I adore RJ Blains voice, her character building and storytelling. It’s always fresh and twisty. Just the way I like an excellent tale to be.
That is not how you end a book‼️ Here I am expecting to get more (because I’m greedy like that) and here you are holding out on me! This is a great start to a trilogy that I am very very excited to get the next book!!!
So on the plus side, you know what you’re going to get with this author and the ideas are solid. In fact that’s why I keep buying these books. The concepts are great and I download a sample and love it!
That being said, I generally run into the same issue with them about a third of the way through. The dialogue gets repetitive as an effort to be humorous…I think. In this book for example there’s the constant running joke I found slightly funny the first 10 times it’s mentioned. When it’s at 30, it’s less funny, in my opinion. It just seems like the book repeats a lot of dialogue, as each character is let into whatever running gag exists. I don’t love that but recognize that it’s this author’s style.
Ultimately for each book I have to determine if the great concepts outweigh the style of the dialogue for me. In this book it came out about even.
DNF I've attempted to read this book several times and I just can't get into it. I love other books by this author but the last several have just not been that good. They meander without really getting anywhere.
Client from Hell starts off really interesting, then it gets just a bit annoying due to the dialogue. I liked the overall idea of the story, however, some of it seemed a bit rushed, and it didn't end with much of an explanation.
It has been quite a while since I read a book that had so much potential but failed so miserably in its' execution. Unfortunately, "Client from Hell" is that book for me. Let me be clear, there are many readers who are fans of this book giving it 4 star ratings. However, I am definitely not one of them.
Imagine a world where in your early twenties you develop a fast acting cancer leaving you with only mere months to live. That is the case for our main character, Sandra Moore. She is a stellar student studying law at a local university when she gets her diagnosis. The truly interesting part of this read is that doctors are undertaking a new experimental approach to fighting cancer by mixing the lycanthropic virus in with cancer patients to see if the virus can kill off the cancer. In Sandra's case it works but of course with a little intervention from angels. This is where the read truly starts to fall apart.
There are sweet ponies with a bite, a good Lucifer similar to that of Santa Claus, a virgin herione who nonchalantly plans to lose her virginity because it is just not important. This read was so silly and chocked full of nonsense that I don't even think that it would entertain young adults. Yet, this book has an overall rating of 4.54 stars. Well, I for one just don't care what others think. This book had me gagging 46% in until I just couldn't take any more. I will not pay an author to be tortured!!!!! Sorry. R.J. Blain this was not for me.
I fell out of love with this author but didn't notice for some time. This book provided the sad epiphany. This author has written maybe around 2-3 books that are actually distinct enough to deserve this label and she has been using and reusing the templates from these books over and over again for many years now. My biggest problem with this is that each book reintroduces the same concepts and the same opinions over and over again. In earlier books, I didn't mind this because characters are allowed to have strong opinions regardless of whether I agree or not. But the problem is that all the characters are identical in every aspect of their personalities. They all seem to just blatantly echo the authors' opinions and worldviews without even a little subtlety or variety. This makes for a cast of almost identical characters beyond a few key templated differences which are always the same across books. There are maybe 5 distinct characters across all her plethora of books. I don't actually hard disagree with most of what the author is selling here in terms of opinions, but its kind of like if your grandparent tells you the same story for the twentieth time and you simply can not bear it anymore (no offense grandma, I love you!). Beyond this simple problem of ever-repeating storylines, personalities, and quirks/running gags the author seems to have gotten tired of reintroducing the same things over and over again as well. This leads to most of her later books being chock-full of incredibly dry exposition not only because I have heard it all dozens of times before but also because the delivery is just lazy. It's basically just the characters telling you, the reader, everything almost outright. A lot of it doesn't feel like a story but a moral lecture. There are other types of stories where this can be somewhat less of a problem because there is so much more going on in terms of complexity and depth (some great high fantasy and sci-fi stories come to mind) but this is supposed to be light and entertaining. At least it seems to me like this is the goal here. There is no room for terribly paced and dry world-building like this.
There are many more ambiguous potential points I could criticize but I have gotten to like many of the authors' eccentricities in how she tells her story and how her humor works. It feels a bit like an acquired taste to me.
I just wish the author would actually write a new and interesting story. To be fair, it is actually incredibly hard to come up with new ideas if you have already gotten through the stories you always wanted to tell. To me it feels a bit like it's less a case of laziness or deliberate recycling of her older stories but that she just doesn't have more to say so she inevitably keeps retelling these same stories.
In conclusion, I will probably not touch another book by this author at least for some time. Maybe she will find new stories to tell eventually.
(FYI I tend to only review one book per series, unless I completely change my mind on a series, so want to change my scoring down a lot. -- I tend not to read reviews until after I read a book, so I go in with an open mind.)
Spin off from Magical Romantic Comedy with a body count. -- So glad I finally tried the parent series, and this spin off after loving 3 other series by the author (Fox witch, Jesse Alexander and Magical librarians. -- I'm patiently waiting for more of these series! Especially Fox witch, the first book I read by R.J.. -- FYI the order on this list, then MRC / MHC is the order of where they stack up as favourites.)
I'll be reading the second book asap! On the one hand its great I have a lot of books to catch up on since it took me ages t try the parent series, they've totally ruined my 'read first in series only to cut down size of to be read mountain' plans. I still have at least one series of hers, not tried but got the first book, so that'll be read asap.... Lowrence Vampires I think it's called. That meet's the 'first of a series' criteria, just not the 'try new author books' one of the mountain.
Oh book 2 didn't come out in 2022. :(
So next up to read is book one of the Lowrence Vampires, not book 2 of this trilogy!
First time read the author's work?: No
Will you be reading more?: Yes
Would you recommend?: Yes
------------ How I rate Stars: 5* = I loved (must read all I can find by the author) 4* = I really enjoyed (got to read all the series and try other books by the author). 3* = I enjoyed (I will continue to read the series) or 3* = Good book just not my thing (I realised I don't like the genre or picked up a kids book to review in error.)
All of the above scores means I would recommend them! - 2* = it was okay (I might give the next book in the series a try, to see if that was better IMHO.) 1* = Disliked
Note: adding these basic 'reviews' after finding out that some people see the stars differently than I do - hoping this clarifies how I feel about the book. :-)
I enjoyed the heck out of this one ... but it really needs to be read with the Magical Romance Comedy with a Body Count series. I'm mostly caught up in that series, and this one kind of fits before Doggone Mess.
Sandra's very young life is about to be snuffed out by VERY AGGRESSIVE cancer, so she decides to torch Lucy's GA mansion ... hoping to be smited before her last ditch efforts to beat cancer.
Like most other heroines in this series .. the Devine have their own agendas with her, and step in to save her from cancer ... using the new strand of lycanthrope virus to do it.
There's also a LOT of match making with Darlene's brother Jonas.
It's a pretty wild ride. She's been hired as Lucy's intern to help investigate and research the labs that were found in Catnapped
Sandra is someone who doesn’t take any bs from the devil. She burns his mini mansion down and then he hires her as an intern. The crazy thing is she burnt his house down due to her having cancer and she wanted him to end it all. But does that happen no she gets into a great adventure with “Lucifers” brother in law Jonas. But she calls him bed buddy. She agrees to a the internship gets cured of cancer by becoming A lycanthrope and she becomes attached to her bed buddy. The adventure begins and you follow her through cancer, being an intern for the devil, and that’s not all. But it’s one laugh and love after another.
This one was just as good, maybe better, than all the previous “with a body count” maybe because it is part of a trilogy. You can really build up the background in preparation of the main story line. Sandra is great, much more stoic than I would be in her situation and much more resilient. I’m so glad Jonas gets a book and that we get to revisit so many characters from previous stories, like Ernesto and his family. I’m looking forward to the rest of this series, and all the others this author writes. Never disappointing and always worth the wait.
While I have enjoyed several of Blain's Magical Romantic Comedies in the past, Client From Hell isn't in that category. This book is the first book of a spin-off trilogy from the ongoing series. And spin is about all this book does. There are some very funny scenes. But there's no real beginning. No real plot. No relationship development. No character development. And surprise! No real ending. The book just stops. I really don't like books that just leave you hanging there. It's not a cliffhanger because there's no cliff. You're just spinning out there until the next book comes out...
Very funny. My head made it funnier because, as an atheist, I hated that she named the father of Lucifer and those angels “Him” or “He” only as it was confusing. It took me a bit to get used to using those words as a name. It was confusing. Here is what a convo with me would sound like: “Have you seen Him lately?” “Who?” “Him.” “WHO?!?” “HIM!” “ I have no idea who you are asking about.”
She started using another name that I am not familiar with but my brain has changed it to “Heehaw” or “Yeehaw” which is more amusing. And I do picture him looked like the donkey in that Heehaw tv show.
As always, Ms. Blain gives us a hilariously twisted tale of strong-willed opinionated women, unconventional courtship, dysfunctional yet loving family and vigilante justice. As always, once I started reading, I had to finish - the story with all its twists and turns refused to let my attention go. As always, I loved this book and I am impatiently waiting for the next!