Sign Here by Claudia Lux was a very entertaining book— definitely unlike anything I've read before. Our main character, Peyote, basically tries to get others to sell their souls to the devil. This book has supernatural elements as well as family drama. It started off strong, but I became a tiny bit bored with it about ¾ though. But I didn't hate it at all!

Two things before I post my review

Hell is always hiring and DON'T DRINK THE WATER

How I loved this book.
This is a great debut novel by Claudia Lux

She was able to create a hell that we understand so well, an everyday boring job except for Peyote it means damning people to hell for all eternity ...or maybe not

The story starts with Peyote Trip in hell for many millennia but time moves differently there, where the only music that plays in your home is opposite of what you like and they only serve Jägermeister at the bars.
He works the crappy sales job of signing people up for horrible deals in exchange for their souls. Many people don't know they are actually making a deal with Hell, they believe an "angel" heard their plea. Whether to get into the college of choice, get the girl they love to feel the same way, or trade their life for the dying life of their daughter a deal is a deal but please read the fine print!

Pey is one Harrison away from completing a whole family that has made deals and this could lead to an escape from "hell"

Chapters alternate between Pey and the Harrison family spending the summer at their New Hampshire estate
where a tragic death 17 years ago will change the lives of all the Harrisons that summer,

I enjoyed everything about this book

Thank you, NetGalley, and author Claudia Lux for this digital copy to honestly review
I am looking forward to reading more books from this wonderful author

QUICK TAKE: a VERY unique concept and I liked so much of it. If i had any issues, it did feel like the hell storyline lived separately from the family murder mystery and I would have liked a stronger connection between the two. They come together at the end, but the tone is so different between the two storylines, that it almost felt like I was reading two different books. Regardless, strong recommendation!

Sign Here was one of my most creative reads of the year, bar none. Striking the perfect mix between dark humour and thriller, this book was wildly inventive. I feel like it would be easy to spoil if I went into the concepts of the book but the descriptions of the floors of hell (7 - mirroring Dante's Inferno) were so cleverly done.

Only serving Jagermeister in Hell? Seems entirely fitting and damn kis that clever. Recommend this read 100 times over.

Sign Here was far and away one of the most enjoyable books I read in 2022. The Hell setting was fun - different levels, with our main characters being on the Boring Office Hell floor. Very cheeky, with a dash of wickedness.

Thank you to @NetGalley, @Berkley and @letstalkbookspromo for the #gifted copy of the book.

I had to use some imagination with this one which is not a bad thing! I mean who in their right mind signs over their soul to hell? NOT ME! I am all about reading the fine print. I actually enjoyed the human part of the story way more than the hell part of the story, but it was still a good debut book!

I loved the premise of this more than the execution, but still enjoyed this very original tale. Twisty at the end, and fast paced for me.

This book started so strong for me and I was really into the fun and clever descriptions of Hell, the quirky characters who worked there, and it had me so intrigued to who these characters were in life and how they related to the present day story.

That, however, fell flat for me pretty quickly. The fun Hell descriptions tapered off about 20% in and I really slogged though the rest and felt like all the exciting potential fizzled out.

I am definitely in the minority. The ending lost me completely - I anticipated this being a twisty clashing of storylines and well, it didn't really happen. It was a bit too long, got really dry in the middle, and never panned out for me in the long run.

I dunno, maybe I missed something? I didn't get the horror feel, it wasn't all that funny, and I was just left with not caring much about it all unfortunately.

I absolutely loved this book. I plan to write a longer review, but my immediate reaction is to give some friendly advice to anyone who wonders if the plot, writing and characters are as intriguing as the cover. YES! Holy Hell, what a book!

Claudia Lux presents an interesting idea, or ideas of what hell must look like in Sign Here. The plot line is interesting, but things get crazy once the multiple point of views in the form of the Harrison family start to chime in. Dark humor keeps you laughing or at least chuckling, while you hold on for the twisty plot ride toward the ending. Overall, a very good read and I would recommend just because of the unique storyline. There are characters we like and others we do not. The contract makes me cringe, thinking about all the people who never read what they sign!

Thank you to NetGalley, Berkley Publishing and Claudia Lux for this review copy for me to read and enjoy!

This was a fun multiple POV story.
I really enjoyed reading Peyote, who is a worker in Hell trying for a promotion, POV and felt that there wasn’t enough of his story.
It quickly switched to the POV of multiple members of the Harrison family and got confused and hard to keep up with at times.
Although, I did enjoy this, I ended the book a little confused.

This story follows 2 storylines: one in Hell and the other in Earth. For a while I was wondering how the two would connect as they read like two very different stories, but they did connect in the end in a surprising way.

In Hell we have Peyote. We don’t know what his human life was like that led him to spending the afterlife in Hell. However in Hell he works for the deals department bargaining with humans to agree to spend their afterlife in Hell. He has a plan to get out of Hell entirely and is determined to make it happen.

On Earth we follow various members of the Harrison family. Like most families they have their issues, and we get all of their perspectives on their summer at the lake house.

This book was truly unlike any book I have ever read. The plot was so unique and had me engaged from start to finish. While I wish the ending had been a bit more fleshed out and had more detail, I loved this book overall. I found it to be so intriguing and surprising with so many twists that kept me guessing. This was such a fun spooky season read!

Thanks to Berkley Publishing for the advance copy.

There was something unsettling about the concept, that hell had levels (not like Dante imagined) and that eternity was... fluid. You could spend thousands of years being tortured, or torturing, but then go up a level for another thousands of years. I did love that smarmy salespeople are smarmy, no matter where they're from. Not just the whole "deal with the Devil" part, but the way Trey was regarding both Pey and Cal? Smarmy. It definitely made the idea of the office from Hell real.

So why only four stars? There was some strange interweaving of the Pey and Cal storylines, and the payoff for them felt very forced. On their own, the stories could have stood up, but trying to get them to mesh didn't make sense until the very end and by then... as I said, it felt forced. There is another plot hole that I won't spoil for anyone but it logically doesn't make any sense.

eARC provided by publisher via Netgalley.

Thank you, Berkley Publishing, for the gifted copy of Sign Here {partner}

Genre: Horror
Format: 📖
Pub Date: 10.25.2022
Star Rating: ☆☆☆

I’m not entirely sure what I expected from Sign Here, but it is one of the more unique stories I’ve read in recent memory. Not only is it unique, but it’s reasonably unsettling as well. I had a hard time reading it as it was initially my ‘before bed’ book, but then it gave me nightmares, so it became my ‘during the day’ book. It wasn’t scary or thrilling by any means; it was just profoundly unsettling for me to read.

The characters were all morally grey (why they ended up in hell, I guess), but I didn’t hate them. Well, that’s not true; there were three in particular that I didn’t like.

As for the ending? It was a letdown for me. I thought it was a strange way to conclude the book, and it didn’t fit with the previous 90% of the story. I can’t pinpoint exactly what didn’t work for me, just that it fell flat. It might be because I thought I’d had the book all worked out until that point, and then it went in the opposite direction.

😈 Dark Humor
👔 Not your typical hellscape; think Office vibes
🐌 Slow in a few areas
👌🏼 Some fun reveals
✌🏼 Two stories in one
🫓 Ending fell flat

You can find my full review on my blog (link in bio).

I’d love to compare Sign Here to another book that I’ve read so you could see if it would be for you, but as I said previously, it’s a unique story. I suggest checking it out or adding it to your Spooky Season 2023 Reading List!

Peyote Trip works in the deals department of Hell (one of the better places to work, but still... it's Hell, so it's not great, especially when you will be there forever). He's working on a complicated plan that involves getting the final member of the Harrison family to sign away their soul., possibly earning himself a new start.

I really loved the concept of this book and thought it was funny and pretty great for most of it, but the ending lost me. I was so confused about what actually happened and who did what and when and how that it was frustrating. This was nevertheless a super impressive debut, and I'm looking forward to reading whatever Lux writes next!

3.5 rounded up

Sign Here is a surprisingly humorous take on what life and work in Hell is like, especially for Peyote. Peyote has to convince people on Earth to sell their souls and if he gets lucky enough, he can earn his life back. He's been working the Harrison family for generations...

The Harrison family is currently at the lake house for the summer, a place full of family history but brought back to life with teenage daughter Mickey and her friend Ruth. But Harrison family secrets bubble up to the surface before the summer is over.

I always joke about being in a level of hell when things go wrong, so I really appreciated the humor in Peyote's story. I would recommend this to folks who enjoy a mystery and dark humor.

Peyote Trip has a pretty good job in the deals department considering how hard t is to work in hell. He’s looking at a promotion, that is if he can get one more Harrison to sell their soul. But everything isn’t as cut and dry as it appears. The Harrison family is not the picture-perfect family at first glance they appear to be, and the friend their daughter brings along to their summer cottage seems to have an agenda of her own.

While I enjoyed learning the Harrison secrets, it was the story of working in hell that I loved. Peyote had an extremely dark and humorous side and a way of describing his job and the working conditions that out the story. I really felt sorry for him. I often wondered if his being here was a mistake and  I won’t spoil the story by saying any more about that.

 Did I love how it ended? No, but the journey didn’t disappoint me. Learning about the Harrison family, Peyote’s life and death, and Calamity Gannon, his newest coworker in hell, kept me flipping through the pages late into the night.

This maybe one of my favorite books in this category in a while. I felt vibes of some of my favorite movies in this one, which is always a good transfer especially in horror categories. The way the family drama works with it just makes it all the better.

✍️ REVIEW: SIGN HERE ✍️

By Claudia Lux

📖 SUMMARY: Peyote Trip works in Hell… literally. His days consist of getting people to make deals and sign their souls away, and he’s almost got a Complete Set: 5 generations of the same family. Newcomer to the Deals Department, Cal, starts to put a wrench in his brand plans. Meanwhile on Earth, the Harrison family is slowly splintering. Silas can feel his wife, Lily, drifting — which makes sense, since she’s having an affair. Their daughter, Mickey, is under the influence of her new best friend who’s joined them on their annual family vacation. Peyote is watching it all go down, and the way these stories intertwine will leave you reeling.

💭 THOUGHTS: I was so thoroughly impressed by this book, even more so because it’s a debut novel! The premise instantly sold me. This is definitely one of those books where the premise could sound great, but the execution falls flat… and I’m happy to say that that was NOT the case here. I found myself shocked at every twist, and usually I see twists coming! It switches back and forth between the POVs of Peyote, Silas, Mickey, and Lily, and I had to keep reading after each chapter ended to find out what happened next. Highly recommend this for a spooky season read if you need a break from witchy books!

Thank you to @ berkley and @ netgalley for the ARC. This comes out next Tuesday, October 25!

✨ RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

🥰 YOU’LL ENJOY IF: you’ve seen every episode of THE GOOD PLACE and love twisty books

Oh my, this story was a trip! I guess one could say “a trip to Hell and back” bahaha, but entertaining as heck, or hell!

Peyote works in Hell, his job being to convince people to sign away their souls, in order to get their wish fulfilled. This can become…complicated, particularly as Pey works to get the last generation of a family to sign on the dotted line, giving Peyote a ticket back to life.

The story pops back and forth in place, time, and amongst the various characters, both ‘hellish’ and earthbound. I wondered at times if this author could pull all these strings together in the end, and YES she did, in impressive and inspiring manner.

Unique in plotting, sassy voice, and highly entertaining - if you’re looking for something a little different, this will keep you turning pages.