Callie promised her mom that she could run the family’s escape business for the weekend while her mom is out of town. But, then a Satanic cult shows and claims that the spell book they use as a prop, is actually real. They take Callie, and her friend, Mag along with them. And they summon the devil’s right hand. They summon Luke, a good looking demon, and he helps Callie stop the cult from armageddon. As they both try to stop the cult, Callie finds herself attracted to Luke, But, what she doesn’t know is that Luke is actually the Prince of Hell, the son of the Devil.

I never read a paranormal romance before, but overall this book was fun to read. It’s different from what I usually read. Some things I liked were the adventure Luke and Callie had while they were trying to stop the cult (although there were some parts that got boring), the humor and the dialogue. But, it was hard to see Callie and Luke as love interests. They didn’t have chemistry and there were barely any romantic scenes with these two. It would’ve been better if they were friends.

Thank you NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for giving me an ARC for my honest review!

This book was so much fun. I was expecting one thing and got something totally unique and amazing. I just enjoyed the ride that this story took and I recommend it to everyone who enjoys a wonderful story.

I really wanted to like this. It's got an interesting premise- recent college grad working for her mom finds love with Luke the son of the devil. Yep. Unfortunately, it was meh for me but that comes with a caveat. I think this would be a great YA crossover for the younger reader. It's light, it's humorous (even if the humor didn't work for me) and it's got two relatable character ((yes, the son of Satan is relatable here). Thanks to netgalley for the ARC.

This was such a surprising read. I loved the fun and quirkiness of Callie and Luke. They have great dialogue together. The entire world that Gwenda Bond built was so rich and engaging. I eagerly await future installments.

I wanted to like this based on the book’s synopsis but I felt like it didn’t live up to the summary. I stopped reading it so possibly it got better but it just wasn’t the book for me.

I loved this book, y'all. I was intrigued by the idea of a rom-com where the romantic interest is quite literally the devil (okay, his son but same thing). What was a pleasant surprise was the tone of this book. So much snark!

Callie (our snarky heroine) is spending the weekend running her family's Escape Room business when a satanic cult shows up to steal a prop that they need for a demonic summoning. After Callie and her friend try to stop them, they end up kidnapped by the cult and forced to watch the summoning that calls up the hot (as in attractive) Luke. Luke and Callie have to team up to stop the satanic cult from starting the apocalypse, And catch feelings along the way.

I believe there is a second book coming out, which is awesome because I want more Luke and Callie! Their repartee was great, and the romance was cute. I can't wait to read more!

Not Your Average Hot Guy is the start of a paranormal rom-com series about Callie, a recent college graduate, and Luke, a prince of Hell. Callie works at her mother's escape room business while trying to figure what she is doing with her life. She is left in charge for the weekend while her mother is out of town, and that is when a strange group comes in to do the room that is based on black magic. The group turns out to be a Satanic cult that is out to end the world and they need the grimoire that Callie bought as a prop spellbook to help summon a demon. The cult kidnaps Callie and her friend, Mag, mistaking Callie as a Guardian. Luke answers the summons, in a ploy to reap souls for his father. Luke feels an instant draw to Callie and ends up trying to help her stop the cult from starting the apocalypse.
I enjoyed reading this book, and it ended up being much more fun than I thought it would be, but it is wildly cheesy and the character read much more like high school than the early 20s. I found the beginning to be slow and there is a lot of suspension of belief that Callie and Mag just accept everything that happens. I found the story to really pick up once Callie and Luke journey into hell and by the point, I was on board for it. It was a quick read and I will pick up the next book in the series to see what happens.

I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through NetGalley.

This is easily one of the most unique novels I have ever read. Off the top of my head, I don't think I have ever read anything with even a remotely similar scenario.

This novel automatically jumps into action with a cult arriving at Callie's family business which happens to be an Escape Room business. Like I said unique. This said cult is looking for a grimoire to summon the devil's, right-hand man. Instead, they summon Luke who is the devil's son. He has a task of his own one he cannot fail and this is where our story begins.

Luke and Callie..... I liked luke's character but I didn't love him the way he kept on lying to Callie over and over again didn't make any sense to me but the way that Callie automatically believed what he said knowing he was from hell also made zero sense to me.

I did enjoy this novel but I still think that the character needs some work but I am planning on reading the sequel when that comes out. I give this 4 stars.

This was not what I was expecting this book to be about when I first requested it from NetGalley. I thought it would be "romance between mortal and demon", not.. whatever this was.. a paranormal biblical journey with a touch of romance between the mortal and demon? I don't know. Needless to say I didn't enjoy it, but I did finish it despite struggling through it, so at least there's that?

Definitely unique, however poorly written. Not for me - Rated 2/5

I thought this book was cute! However, with a main character from Hell, I was expecting more spice.

Callie works with her mom at their escape room. One weekend, a cult group summons the prince of the devil, Luke. What comes next is a wild two days of trying to prevent the apocalypse.

Overall, I liked the writing and I thought the story was good. However, this writing reads more like a YA romance than an adult romance, both as the romance was developing and for the lack of spice. If you like a pretty clean romance with an interesting concept, Callie and Luke could be for you!

I loved the premise of this book, unfortunately the execution wasn’t what I was expecting. Basically, a nice girl accidentally meets the extremely good looking son of the devil. Chaos quite literally ensues. The writing was good, but the plot became too far fetched for me as the book went on, and this was after I suspended belief and bought into the premise. I did like the extremely creative descriptions of hell and its environs.
It was a quick read, but in my opinion would be better marketed as a YA book. 3 stars.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This one started out great. I loved Callie’s voice and I was super intrigued with the escape room backdrop. About midway though I started to lose some interest. Things felt a bit over the top and veering on silly. For me, things just unraveled the longer I read. I did feel some chemistry between Callie and Luke but it almost wasn't enough to keep me invested. Sadly, this book just wasn’t for me.

2.5 stars

I really, really wanted to love this book because I love a good paranormal romance but it just fell a little flat for me. I didn’t really feel the chemistry between the main characters and there was so much going on throughout the entire book that felt kind of messy sometimes.
I do love the overall idea and the characters.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with a copy.

This book is such a cheesy rom-com filled with delight. I love Callie and her obsession with the occult, escape rooms, and saving the day. I love Luke and his position of being the disappointing son of Lucifer. I love how these two characters came together to end the apocalypse.

It was weirdly wholesome for a book dealing with stopping a doomsday cult, and I can't wait for the next one.

If a description for a book tells me the book is hilarious, I generally hope that I actually laugh while reading it. Unfortunately, that was not the case for Not Your Average Hot Guy. I went into it expecting a fun romantic comedy (not unfairly, in my opinion, since the description mentions that it’s a romantic comedy twice) but I do not think it lived up to that claim.

Not Your Average Hot Guy is the story of Callie, who just graduated from college and is living at home with her mom, helping run the family escape room business, and Luke, the son of the devil. Callie’s mom goes out of town for a weekend, leaving her in charge, and of course this is when a satanic cult decides to break into the escape room and steal what Callie thought was just a prop book, but turns out to be a powerful grimoire. In the process, the cult kidnaps Callie and her friend Mag, taking them to a creepy house in the country. The cult intends to summon a different demon, but for plot reasons, Luke gets sent instead. Luke is on a deadline to retrieve souls to prove himself to his father, and after failing to correctly bargain with the cult for their souls, ends up going with Callie in an attempt to prevent the apocalypse that will happen if the cult gets their hands on the magical item they want.

My biggest issue with this book is that it is all over the place. All of the action happens in less than a weekend, and there is a lot of action, but the romance and character development suffer as a result. I normally don’t have any problems with a madcap, zany plot, but at a certain point it felt like stuff was just getting shoved in willy-nilly to give Luke and Callie something to do. But what they don’t do is spend any time talking to each other beyond discussing the next step in their plan to end the apocalypse. For example, Luke lies to Callie about multiple things, and one time (when she figures out he lied about his identity!) Callie literally “waves her hand in dismissal.” As a reader, I couldn’t get a handle on why Luke and Callie would want to be together, since they don’t really know each other.

Normally, in a paranormal romance, world-building isn’t a huge focus, because the story is based in our world, with paranormal aspects. But Not Your Average Hot Guy didn’t even handle our world very well. To be honest, the book lost me when Callie and Luke teleport from Portugal, where there is a full moon above them, to Lexington, Kentucky (five hours behind) where the sun is coming up. Maybe this is a ridiculous thing to get caught up on, but it is also the culmination of a series of events that didn’t seem to understand how time or cross-Atlantic travel works. The paranormal aspects don’t feel fleshed out either - for example, there’s a sentence or two about how Luke doesn’t have his wings yet, which is weird for a demon his age, but I didn’t really get why it was an issue. Then when his wings do show up, it doesn’t have the emotional impact that I feel the moment was intended to, because there just wasn’t enough detail to build on.

One of my other problems with Not Your Average Hot Guy is that the characters feel even younger than their real age. I did appreciate that Luke isn’t one of those hundreds of years old immortal beings we normally see in paranormal romance, falling in love with a much younger woman, so at least there is that. But Callie and Luke come across as very young and immature (with the accompanying not yet fully developed brains and bad decisions), and because of the book’s focus on the plot, they don’t seem to grow over the course of the book, especially Luke. I have never previously thought of a male character in a romance novel as “too stupid to live,” but there’s a first time for everything, apparently.

I want to say that I may have had a better experience with Not Your Average Hot Guy if the description had given me a clearer idea of what to expect (“new adult” age characters, not such an emphasis on funniness, etc.) but then I go back to the factually incorrect use of time zones and I’m not so sure. I was really looking forward to reading this book, and I am sad to say that overall, it was a disappointing reading experience.

I received this arc through netgalley. Thank you St. Martin’s Griffin. This story starts off with Callie who is in charge of an escape room. She ends up meeting Luke, the prince of hell. This story had Dual POV’s and was brimming with pop culture references. Unfortunately I think I went into this with the wrong idea. It said paranormal romantic comedy so I figured this would be character driven and be something that would make me smile and laugh. This was actually a plot driven story and I found no comedy in it whatsoever. I’m not sure if I just didn’t share the same humor or if it should really just be labeled as paranormal romance. I also had a hard time with it because the characters are supposed to be adults but they felt very juvenile at times. Because of this and the insta-love I did not enjoy the first part of this. The second and third is part of the book were a lot better though.

This book grew on me. I like that it just went with its premise from the beginning, and ran with it. Luke is the son of Satan, and he's a sort of hapless teenager. He never does anything right, and his heart really isn't into being a bad guy. He needs to obtain souls by a deadline, and enter into the story Callie and her best friend Mag. Callie is a good girl with fire to her. She fights for what she believes in, and she loves her friends and family, I love that Callie is fearless. It's pretty predictable that Callie and Luke get together. For all of the drama between the occult and humans--the whole book is careening towards apocalypse--the end is pretty anti-climactic. It's setting up for a sequel, which I will read. So. if you enjoy YA and also some fantasy thrown in there, this book would be good for you.

Thank you NetGalley for the free ARC.

DNF. I really liked the premise but the writing did not work for me at all. It wouldn't be fair to the book if I finished reading and gave it a low rating.

3.5 stars for this one. I went into this as one of my most anticipated reads of the year and came out admiring the craft, but not falling in love with it.

dnf @ 24%

it wasn't really bad. i mean it was an interesting concept and had some gender diversity. but, it just didn't keep my attention. i think this was more a "me" thing. i just wasn't in the mood for this right now.