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Hayley and her friend Jay are allowed in purgatory by the gatekeeper, even though they don’t belong there. After wandering around for a while unaware of what has happened to them, Hayley meets Samuel, the leader of Purgatory, and falls for him hard. Although he believes that she is the reincarnation of his lost loves Lilith and Beatrice, Hayley is sure that she is still herself, and not these two other women. She feels normal most of the time, although she seems to be getting sexually excited about stuff she’s never dreamed of doing. As Lilith takes over more and more, Hayley learns that in purgatory, anything you can imagine happens, and she’s getting involved in ways that she thought she never would.
Samuel has two people living in his head as well, Dante and Dis, the previous incarnations that loved both Lilith and Beatrice. He believes that Hayley is a reincarnation of Lilith and Beatrice, who both destroyed him in their own way. Lilith is what caused Dis to be destroyed the first time, loosing the chance at a normal life when she refused him. She also had a voracious sexual appetite that couldn’t be satisfied by one man, which was part of what hurt him. Beatrice had betrayed Dante, led him on and when it looked like she might loose her marriage to her wealthy husband, dropped Dante flat. Now they are kings of Purgatory, and seeing Hayley has brought all the old torments back. Can they get it right this time?
There’s also a battle between Christian god and the Pagan gods going on in the midst of the story about Hayley and Samuels relationship that is really interesting and makes the story move along at a fast clip. The way Sheri Gilmore weaved the two religious beliefs together to make a war out of keeping Purgatory kept me thinking even after I had read the book. The battle for Purgatory is unexpectedly important, because if the pagans win, only they will be able to cross over into heaven or hell. There’s a lot of violence (after all, it IS purgatory) and a lot of sex, especially when Lilith takes over Hayley. There is so much going on that I had to interrupt the flow of the story several times to re-read portions in order to understand what was going on. HOT HOUSE: DANTE AND HAYLEY Is a complicated story with a lot of twists and turns that makes for a great reading experience.
Reviewed by Julie Brown
for The Road to Romance
July 26, 2005
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