Devil King of the Sixth Heaven by Darragha Foster (Liquid Silver Books)

Grade: C

I only finished reading this ebook ten minutes ago and goddamn it, I can’t remember a blasted thing about it. There was anal sex and a bunch of boring Norse mythology and a string of sex scenes in a mall, but that’s about it. I read a pretty kickass story once about a guy who seduces a girl in a mall and they do this awesome S&M thing and for such a short book, that one had some deep emotional resonance, but this one… not so much. I’m hard-pressed to remember anything about the heroine–much less her name–but at least I remember that the hero of this book is Loki. There’s that. The sex scenes in this book are pretty hot and interesting–especially that threesome in the bathroom between Loki, the heroine, and Odin–but unfortunately, the stilted dialogue, the clumsy conversation between the two leads, and an awkward presentation of the Norse mythology really bogged the story down. There is a scene in a restaurant where the hero and the heroine are talking about the hero’s past while eating, which just seemed so out of place in the story that I actually had to stop reading for a second and ask, “Why are you guys even talking? There’s fucking to be done!”

Our heroine Liliah is a comparative religion (mythology?) professor at a community college and knows her shit when it comes to gods and goddesses. She’s cranky, a little cynical, but still wishes from time to time that something exciting will happen to her. I was actually picturing Janeane Garofalo in my head as Liliah, because I couldn’t imagine the sweet, young thing on the cover in her place. Weird choice. She looks like a model for a bubble gum commercial. Anyway, while seriously jonesing for caffeine and chocolate one morning, Liliah heads for the local mall (why would anyone do this? There’s a Starbucks on every corner!) and orders a giant cup of coffee and a giant slab of brownie, parking herself where she can watch the people going in and out of the mall. One particular mall visitor is a serious hunk who’s got everyone–boys and girls–checking him out. Liliah, who hasn’t had sex in a while, naturally drools over him and gets the shock of her life when he approaches her and flirts outrageously with her. He tells her that he knows all about her and that he was impressed with the lecture she did on the the Flyting of Loki. Oh, and that he’s Loki himself and would like very much to have sex with her. Only they can’t leave the mall ’cause he’s bound to it.

You see, at this point, I would have ran far, far away, but Liliah is obviously hard up because she actually stays and listens to the crazy man. And has sex with him all over the mall. Even a diaper-changing station. Eww.

If this entire story had been about Liliah finding a stranger and having sex with him at the local mall, it would have been fine. In fact, the first few chapters of this book wasn’t bad at all. I actually found myself enjoying it. It was not until Liliah decided that she was going to save Loki, so that Loki could leave the mall with her, and they can live happily ever after that the story began to sag for me. The story just seems too big to be contained within sixty pages. There was just too much going on. I found myself getting dizzier and dizzier as Foster piled more and more mythology on top of what could have been a nice little story about a bookish professor who has sex with a man who just also happens to be a god.

I also couldn’t get myself to like the hero, Loki. I know he’s supposed to be a god and all, but he’s kind of an arrogant dick. Most romance novel heroes are arrogant dicks, but he’s an arrogant dick in a way that I couldn’t like him. I don’t know what it is about the guy, but there’s just something terribly off-putting about him, especially the way he keeps talking about his glory days as a god. He reminded me of a sleazy jerk who won’t stop talking about how cool and popular he was in high school… twenty years after the fact. Liliah, on the other hand, is less annoying. She’s oddly desperate and kind of cuckoo herself, but I had to give her props for being able to take on two gods at the same time. The character of Odin was kind of creepy, but that scene between Liliah, Loki, and Odin was hot.

On the other hand, Foster seems to really know what she’s talking about when it comes to this mythology stuff. It’s really obvious when Liliah and Loki talk about it over a brownie and coffee. Unfortunately, the parts when Liliah and Loki discuss mythology is strangely different in tone from the rest of the piece. I thought they were awkward and out of place, making their conversations seem stilted and forced. I got restless whenever the two of them started talking because I really didn’t care much about it and wished they would just have sex some more. It’s really too bad that Foster was unable to weave the mythology more seamlessly into the story ’cause it just made the exposition stuff seem clunky. Foster seems to know her stuff, though.

If you’re looking for a quick read with hot sex, you might want to check this ebook out. Sure, the mythology didn’t quite work for me and I wish there had been more of an interaction between the hero and heroine that didn’t involve sex, but at least the sex scenes are hot. Unfortunately, the stilted dialogue, the unlikeable hero, and the clunky exposition didn’t work for me. At least read it for the threesome scene. It was really quite entertaining.

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