I loved how completely unexpected many parts of this story were. It follows the basic premise of pretty much every new adult rom-com out there, but the demon element lets Bond play around with fantasy and religious aspects that add a very original flavor. It's a series of wait-what moments that move the plot at a great pace.
My one complaint is that I found leading lady Callie to be a bit boring. She's the stereotypical unsure in life young adult who loves books and would do anything for family and friends. Everything about her felt like a blank space waiting for self-insertion. The rest of the characters have certain characteristics that make them interesting or stand out in some way, so the fact that she felt somehow half-written sticks out too much.
Overall, it's still an enjoyable read despite my not liking Callie. It's something to read, be entertained for the duration, and then move on. The literary equivalent of a popcorn movie.

Many happy thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for the great read!

Instantly entertaining, a paranormal romantic comedy that has lots of snark, an incorrigible Prince of the Underworld, and a cast of demonic friends that had me laughing every step of the way. The storyline, with it’s quirky Downworlder characters and apocalyptic setting made this an interesting and easily bingeable read. This is the best book if you want something lighthearted and unique, a pleasure from start to finish!

Callie is just trying to run her family owned escape room business while her mother is out of town, but just when she think she’s got everything under control, a bunch of Occult members show up and steal a book to raise a demon from Hell. Callie decides to follow the band of Satan worshippers and ends up befriending a bunch of demons, falling in love with the Prince of Darkness, and trying to save the world from mass destruction.

Once I got past the flow of consciousness type of writing style, I flew through this one. It’s comical, unique, and just plain fun. I really enjoyed the banter, the whip smart comebacks and the pop culture references. This books is like if the television show Lucifer and Dante’s Inferno had a baby. The best part of this book is the misadventures and accidents that happen to Callie and Luke. I’m so pumped for the second book because I need Callie and Luke’s crazy journey to continue and I want more demon tutors, Mag, and Porsoth and Rofocale!

So I was looking at Net Galley and taking in all the beautiful covers (whoever said you don’t judge books by covers was a liar 😉) and I liked the cover and title of this book. I can’t even tell you if I read the book description- I’m notorious for forgetting what the books are about before I read it and then I’m always surprised 😂
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And was this book surprising!!
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First we meet Callie who works at an Escape room. Already off to a great start - I’ve never been to one or read about one so that was fun!
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Then we meet Luke aka Lucifer aka the Heir to Hell. The Devil’s Son. He’s down in Hell and as you can imagine- is a disappointment to his father. 😬🤪 He’s been tasked/ordered to take a soul and is given 48 hours to do so or that’s the end of the line. Luke travels to Earth after a Satanic cult calls for someone from hell.
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Can’t you already tell it’s going to be a wild and wicked ride? 😂
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Of course being demonic doesn’t mean Luke is ugly. No cloven feet here. He’s as hot as hel-well you get the idea. But Callie isn’t falling for it. All she wanted to do was prove to her mom that she could run the Escape room all weekend without any hiccups.
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Nothing like stopping the apocalypse and saving the world!
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For real - I was intrigued but put off by it at the beginning but I kept reading. I thought of stopping a few times but I kept reading and I’m SO glad I did!!
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This was crazy and fun, great witty remarks, journey to Hell, good vs evil, few language and short skippable intimacy. It was wacky and unpredictable, a fascinating world and it seems like there will be a sequel! ❤️
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I never read paranormal romance (does Twilight count? Also there’s a Twilight joke in here 😂) so it wasn’t spooky but a perfect read during spooky season.
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This is the first book by this author that I’ve read but I’ll be here for more! This book released 2 days ago. Thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for an ebook copy. These are my own thoughts and opinions.

I was really excited about this book, but it ended up not being for me. I could not wait to finish it and found myself skimming heavily.

While I know this is a paranormal romance, I could not make myself get on board with any of this. I couldn’t suspend my disbelief. It wasn’t even the paranormal part. It was the insta-love and just general disregard for one’s own safety and well-being.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this one.

While I loved the plot of this book, which was quirky and fun, I had a hard time warming up to Callie and Luke as a couple. This book takes place over the course of 48 hours and their a little too insta-love for me. I believe this is going to be a series so I would rather they be slow-burn so we get more banter/dialogue/flirting. That aside, this is a fun read and a lighter read for spooky season.

This is a Paranormal/Fantasy Romance, and this is the first book in the Not Your Average Hot Guy series. I have to start off by saying I normally do not read Fantasy, and this book is not what I normally read. I really enjoyed this book. I found the characters to be so much fun, and they where so very developed. The storyline/plot was so much fun, and I really loved it. This is a book truly about what happens when Good meets Evil and falls in love with each other. This book pull me in and made me want to keep reading. I was kindly provided an e-copy of this book by the publisher (St. Martin's Griffin) or author (Gwenda Bond) via NetGalley, so I can give an honest review about how I feel about this book. I want to send a big Thank you to them for that.

I’m rounding this one up to ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫. On its pub day, Neil Gaiman tweeted that the author told him this book is like “Good Omens” with kissing and I totally get that. It also reminded me of “Dogma,” the 1999 film with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as warring angels. This book is a fun and campy heaven-and-hell adventure with a romance between a regular person and the Prince of Hell at the middle of it all. It is definitely a genre novel so there is not a lot of character development… I could have used just a smidge more info to help me care about the characters. The romance was very PG-13 - a lot of kissing, some references to sexual things but no explicit sexual scenes. I enjoyed it and will plan to read the sequel, which has already been announced.

This was unlike any book I've ever read and I LOVED it! Honestly, the perfect book if you want October spooky vibes but also a romantic comedy? It just works.

I loved Callie and her knowledge of the occult and escape rooms; I loved Luke because you can't get more morally gray than the literal son of Satan falling in love with a Good Person; and I also loved Mag and Jared and how wonderfully inclusive and positive their side story was.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for the review copy!

This is 3.5 to 4 stars for more. I don’t typically read a lot of Paranormal, but I thought this was a perfect October book. Paranormal + Romance + Adventure!
Callie is helping her mom run the family owned Escape room while she is away. She thinks she going to have a perfect quiet weekend with her best friends Mag. When a Santanic cult shows up to retrieve a relic they not only take the relic, but her as well. Luke a demon trying to earn his stripes shows up to take the souls of the 13 cult members Callie is taken away how handsome he is. He had devilishly good looks. Callie decides she needs to stop the cult, but needs Luke’s help!

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC!

Not Your Average Hot Guy is “a hilarious romantic comedy about two people falling in love, while the fate of the world rests on their shoulders.”

This book was The DaVinci Code but with cute banter and the underworld. 😂

Callie is a brainy mythology junkie whose family owns an escape room. One night, a Satanic cult shows up and steals a book that is part of the display. Callie and her friend are kidnapped and the cult ends up accidentally summoning the son of satan. Callie is forced to work with Luke in order to save the world and of course hijinks ensue.

This was such a fun read for Halloween. The relationship between Callie and Luke was adorable but the underlying plot was full of mythology and mystery.

This is an enjoyable book When a group determined to bring about the end of the world shows up at an escape room by Callie and uses one of the props to summon who they believe the right hand of the devil, Callie is thrust into a role she never expected -- the one person who may be able to save the world. Even more surprising, the figure that is summoned, Luke, despite being from the underworld, agrees to team up with Callie to thwart the group's evil plan . Despite their differences, Callie and Luke find themselves increasingly drawn to each other, even as they are hard at work trying to save the world.

This was a fun read and a nice spin on a romcom. Highly recommended!

It was supposed to be an easy, stressfree week when Callie's mother left to accept an award for running one of the best escape rooms in the country. Everything was supposed to run smoothly. The rooms were well laid out and decorated. The clientle mostly made up of bachelorette parties and frat bros. Nothing should have gone wrong.

Which, of course, means it did.

When a group of cultists shows up, everything goes to hell... almost literally. The cultists believe that one of the props in one of the rooms -- a tome Callie found at a garage sale -- is the real deal. And they want to use it to summon a literal demon. Except the person they summon doesn't look very demonlike. In fact, he's kind of hot. His name is Luke and he's on a mission of his own.

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Not Your Average Hot Guy is a fun, light paranormal romantic comedy. And it's not trying to be anything else. It's pure cotton-candy and popcorn fun and sometimes that's just what you need. In a way, the book reminds me of a mashup between Buffy, The DaVinci Code, and Lucifer. There's lots of lampshade hanging and pop culture references a la Buffy. A hunt for a lost religious artifact before a cult can use it to end the world a la The DaVinci Code. And a good person teamed up with a literal devil to solve the mystery/save the world a la Lucifer. I liked it.

There's a lot of funny lines, and the series is very rooted in modern day pop culture. The characters feel young, early twenties, which makes this more of a new adult paranormal romance rather than some of the staples of PNR which features older heroines. Callie is a bit naive, but it makes sense for her character especially considering how much her mother and brother have sheltered her her whole life. Luke is a bit more jaded... which also makes sense. He's older and he's the literal son of the Devil and Mother Nature. His perspective is skewed because he grew up in Hell surrounded by demons and sinners. The supporting cast is fairly small. Callie's Brother; Her NB BFF, Mag; Luke's mentor, Porsoth, her dog, Bosch; and of course the antagonist. I especially liked Mag who was both a voice of reason but also a source of conflict. It was nice to see a well-rounded transgender character who wasn't completely horrible but who also wasn't absolutely saintly. It's nice to have a grounded human. And no queers were buried in the course of this book.

The writing style is very light and readable, which could seem juvenile to some but is actually harder than it looks. It's a book that is meant to straddle the line between YA readers and Adult PNR readers. The book is written in first person present tense with alternating points of view. Which may be why some readers felt that it felt like fanfic or YA fiction when it isn't. It isn't typical genre convention, but that isn't a bad thing.

I didn't love everything about this book. There's a weird truncated sex scene part way through that both goes too far and not far enough. Basically it starts out open door but then the door slams closed partway through. It didn't land for me. And I'm not sure it was needed, and if it was it either needed to be fully realized or go to fade to black a lot earlier in the scene. It was an odd choice.

But in all, I did like this book. It was fun. It's a solid start for what appears to be the start of a series.

Four and half stars rounded up to Five

I received an arc of this book via NetGalley.

Not Your Average Hot Guy was a different book than I normally read but it was perfect for an October read! The paranormal aspect was so fun! I also really love that this author is from my state so go buy her book!

Thank you so much for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

I don’t know what I was expecting from Not Your Average Hot Guy by Gwenda Bond but it definitely wasn’t what was in the book. It was really enjoyable and wacky though! It was a really fun, wacky read that definitely made me laugh!

Loves:
-Callie is adorable and I really enjoyed her wit. She has a comeback ready for anything. Her journey throughout this book was so much fun and I loved watching her confidence grow with it. Callie’s tenacity and quick thinking were truly the gems of the book.
-Luke is an absolute failure of a demon. Love him for that. He is the most cinnamon roll hero I’ve read in a very long time and I’m not mad about it. Seems a little off brand for being the prince of hell, but I liked him and his personality so I’m willing to overlook some things.
-I loved all the biblical/historical references in this book. There is a lot of heavy christian based theology in this, but I really enjoyed the ways that Bond used the pieces to put this plot together. Mind you I was scrolling back in my mind for some of the references (it’s been a while since Sunday School), but it was really entertaining! Plus all of the side characters of Hell and Lilith!!! Omg I could use more books with Lilith in it.
-This book is completely whimsical and weird. To be honest I’ve been in need of a really lighthearted read, and a romance between a human and the prince of hell trying to stop Armageddon was exactly what I needed. Sure some of the jokes felt forced and the romance could have used some more development, but just the sheer joy I got from reading this novel makes up for it.

Meh:
-The pacing of the story felt off. There was so much that happened and honestly it took me a lot of scrolling back and forth trying to figure out the timeline of the book. And for everything that happened in the book to have taken place in 48 hours… even with the help of Lucifer’s son it seemed impossible.
-The writing took some time to get used to. It’s written in first person and feels really young. I think this book is supposed to be adult, but it read like a YA novel (higher end). The characters were young and maybe because everything was so whimsical without any heaviness that it felt more this way? And the addition of a closed door sex scene that was so lighthearted too? Idk. YA can definitely be heavy too, but this one is just really hard to place.
-Like I said some of the jokes were a little forced and the romance could have really used some more development beyond insta lust (ha-- a sin). But it was a really interesting idea and the characters did have decent development.

Long Story Short:
Do I recommend this novel? Yeah. It’s fun and weird and just a burst of joy reading it. It’s nothing heavy no matter what the synopsis might have you believe. I really enjoyed the quirky nature of the story and grew to not mind the writing. The plot definitely out-showed every other piece of this book. But I would recommend it to read. Super not my typical read but I don’t regret picking it up!

A fun, lighthearted romantic comedy with a bit of the paranormal thrown in for good measure. A tale of good versus evil, only in this case, the good and the evil meet and fall desperately in love.

Callie and Luke were both delightfully lovely characters, and while I’m not normally a fan of insta-love, I absolutely adored it with these two. Told from both Callie and Luke’s alternating POV’s, I loved getting to see their relationship develop through their own eyes. The secondary characters were charming as well, and I hope to see some of them in the subsequent books.

Bottom line — a feel good romance where good and evil team up to save the world and fall in love in the process. 3.5 stars, and I’ll certainly be following along with this quirky and fun new series.


*Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital arc.

This was a bit of a silly romcom with the son of the devil and an average human girl. They are on a bit of a wild journey trying to stop an underworld cult. It’s quirky and out there. Funny and strange. A unique read.

This paranormal romance follows Callie and Luke. She helps run her family's escape room business while trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life. He's the Prince of Hell who has yet to secure any souls and he's on a strict deadline. The two meet when an apocalyptic cult looking for a celestial weapon kidnaps Callie and summons Luke. The two of them (along with Callie's brother Jared and her best friend Mag) team up to defeat the cult and stop the literal end of the world. This was a super fun, paranormal, rom-com read. I flew through it in one sitting and absolutely fell in love with both Callie and Luke. I thought their relationship was super fun and had a lot of great banter. This book takes place over a weekend so they did fall on the insta-love side of things. However, there is a second book scheduled to come out Spring 2022 which has them continuing to date so I look forward to seeing their relationship progress. Side characters were well developed and I would love to read the story of Mag and Jared one day because they just seem so perfect together. I thought this, in a lot of ways, was similar in plot points to Harley Laroux's Her Soul To Take but obviously a much fluffier, lighter, more rom-com version.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for review.
Publication date: October 5, 2021.

Bond's romantic comedy is an inventive take on the usual opposites attract trope. As the daughter of the owner of an escape room enterprise (fun idea!), she's anxious to handle things while her mom's out of town. But before she and her best friend Mag know it, they're inundated with a Satanic cult that wants to use a fake spell book they have in one of their rooms (it's not fake, it's real!) to summon a demon from hell--who turns out to be hot and snarky Luke Morningstar (the son of the Devil). As expected, sparks fly between Callie and Luke while they work with Mag to stop the cult from ending the world as they know it.

I loved the banter between Luke and Callie and the overall plot...I just felt like it dragged a bit. Over 300 pages was too long for the story. And although Luke and Callie do have a banter, I felt like the romance between them was lukewarm at best (sorry, pun not intended). They seemed more like friends than hot-as-hell lovers. Loved the nonbinary rep with Mag, though. Overall a cute story and warmish couple, but not a best-of book of the genre.

I was so excited by the premise of this one, but the delivery, unfortunately, fell flat for me.
A rom com featuring the actual Prince of Hell p, as well as an escape room, and a Satanic cult? I thought for sure this would knock it out of the park.
I didn’t mesh with any of the characters, and the whole story felt more YA than I am used to reading.
While this wasn’t my cup of tea, I’m sure it will be for others.

The Prince of Darkness and a the daughter of an escape room owner pair up to stop the end of the world after a cult steals a grimoire thought to be a prop.

I’m torn between a 2.5/3 star on this one. While this book was a quick and cute read, it seemed too young for an adult book (even for a new adult) and probably would of done better if it was a YA and the Callie and Luke were maybe 16. Additionally, it seemed to focus more on the biblical side than the romance and the romance we did have seemed to insta-lovey for my taste. Additionally, Callie seems so chill with everything and just accepted everything pretty quickly and while it was funny on some occasions, it did come off a bit unbelievable.



***I was given an arc copy of this book but the opinions are my own***