You know that movie Office Space where outside consultants come in and reorganize the place for efficiency? Hell’s Belles is like that, except the office is Hell, and instead of Milton, or that guy with the O-Face, you have a hot succubus named Jezebel, who isn’t too pleased with the whole restructuring, and heads off to Earth to hide out as a mortal while all of Hell is after her, due to a, well, hell of a bounty on her head.

So if you were a sexual succubus whose job used to be dragging naughty souls to hell after fucking them to death, where would you go hide out? Jezebel, being the brilliant thing she is, finds paying work in a strip club – and hides out in exactly the same sort of sin and vice that used to be her profession and calling as a demon.

I liked the concept of a succubus thrust into human form and forced into permanently living in a foreign environment she’s not entirely comfortable with, because her unease at a lot of situations somes from not only complete unfamiliarity but from the fear of having absolutely zero powers in a place where she used to be exceptionally powerful. That’s a big ass blow to the ego, and yet Jezebel doesn’t spend a lot of time wallowing or bitching about her fate. She knows she chose to run from Hell, and she has to suck it up. She also has gain confidence as a demon masquerading as a human and trying to survive in an impossible situation, because if she screws up, she is so worse than dead.

Jezebel, while doing her thang as a human, meets Paul Hamilton – a very hot cop with a lot of emotional baggage. Add to that the increasing politics of Hell’s reorganization, and Jezebel has to choose between her growing attachment to Paul, and her desire to keep him safe from the seriously nasty things that are after her.

Kessler has a taut and somewhat tense writing style that makes for a fast and addictive read, and she employed a few devices that stuck with me even after I finished the book. For example, she made me think about use of popular music in contemporary romances. I used to think that the mention of a song or artist would immediately date the novel and render it stuck in a very specific range of time. But Kessler references a specific song, Marc Broussard’s “Home,” which I happen to love, and given the beat, the description of Jezebel’s dancing, and the scene itself, it worked and worked well. Referencing a song that isn’t chart-topping popular but interesting, clever and unique – the song itself is a kickass hybrid of Louisiana blues and funk – doesn’t date the book so much as add a layer to the story and the character. I understood more about Jezebel based on her association of the song: she is becoming something of a hybrid as much as the song already is.

My biggest problem, though, with the story rested on one aspect of Jezebel’s adjustment to human form. Does she have a memory? Does she have senses as a human that she didn’t have before? Is there some disconnect between senses, which she has, and a soul, which she does not? Every time she encountered something familiar – even if she’d only been in the human’s form for a day or two – that reminded her of something having to do with Hell, it would be right on the tip of her tongue, or tickling the edge of her brain, and I wanted to smack her with something heavy because OMG YOU WERE JUST THERE TWO DAYS AGO SURELY YOU REMEMBER. I was just there WITH YOU and I remember what it was. As far as a plot device to forward the suspense, it was frustrating, because I wasn’t sure if the protagonist/narrator was being a complete idiot, if she was unreliable, or if she wasn’t used to her human-limited senses. Ultimately it happened frequently enough that I wanted to bean her with her dancing pole.

Jezebel’s limitations as a human aren’t fully explained in terms of what it meant for the human whose body she copied. Clearly this is a series because there were some major pipe-sized loose ends left for the next book, but I find it frustrating when a large element isn’t revisited after for the beginning of the book, and while the character and storyline in question has to appear in subsequent books (I would hope!) I felt disappointed not to know even a little of what happened. Creating a first of a series that stands alone yet makes it clear there’s more story to be told is quite a balance, and it’s hard to accomplish. I’ve also heard from more than one author that publishers and editors want it OMG CLEAR that there is a sequel, hence big honking storylines left unresolved. Whatever the reason, it makes me a cranky panda. 

However, even picking up the book again a moment ago to get a fact or a detail straight for this review meant I lost a good ten minutes reading again, because the prose sucks you in and so much happens so fast that reading it is one what-happens-next after another. So I really, really want to find out what happens next – and I have to wait until November (*pout*).