“Till death do us part” should really come with an asterisk: Does not apply in cases of reincarnation. That omission is a rather huge problem for Effie MacLeod, the centuries-old demon at the heart of Alexandria Bellefleur’s “Damned If I Do.”
See, back in 16th-century Scotland, Effie made a deal with Lucifer to save someone she loved and surrendered her soul in the process. In the intervening centuries, she’s made something of herself in Hell and is preparing to marry Belphegor, one of its seven princes. (It’s a strategic alliance more than it is a love match, but eh, it works for them.) And then… Hell’s bureaucrats discover that Effie is still married to Finn, her supposedly-long-dead human husband, who has spent the last several centuries being reincarnated. Problem! She needs to get him to renounce their vows so she can get on with her immortal life, so she tracks Finn to a small Georgia town where he: owns a bar, has no memory of her, and refuses to sign away a relationship he can’t remember. So much for a quick divorce!
Effie says she has an infernal fiancé waiting for her and absolutely no intention of falling back in love with her husband. You can probably guess how that goes.
Bellefleur has a terrific premise, but the real fun is watching Effie and Finn make a glorious mess of it.
Effie has had several hundred years to become fierce, formidable, and very good at getting what she wants. She can be sharp-tongued and “evil” and still care so deeply about others that she makes decisions most demons wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. For someone who sold her soul to the devil, she has an inconveniently functional conscience. I was rooting for Effie to get everything she wanted — with the notable exception of a divorce.
Finn pushes back on all of Effie’s schemes and seems to enjoy getting under her skin. He gives as good as he gets — important when the woman he’s flirting shamelessly with has had plenty of time to perfect the art of getting in the last word. (I finished this book feeling considerably more open-minded about dating a hot local bartender.) His attraction to Effie is immediate, but he has a bigger role than jut staring at her longingly and shrugging his shoulder to surrender to his fate: He tries to understand the history she’s determined to bury.
At one point, Effie recruits a group of sassy local women to talk some sense into Finn. Instead, he makes a case for winning her back, and her supposed allies promptly defect. Martha suggests he build Effie a house. Luella compares the situation to “The Notebook.” Finn, meanwhile, recognizes a golden opportunity to torment his wife with a public declaration of romantic intent.
Their relationship has more going for it than just some woo-woo supernatural attraction. Both Effie and Finn are stubborn, occasionally possessive, and so well matched that their arguments feel like foreplay. Bellefleur finds ways for their romance to be funny without making the more complicated feelings involved disposable. Finn doesn’t remember their first life; Effie remembers far more than she’d care to. He has lived entire lives without her; she has spent centuries building an existence where she no longer needs him.
Bellefleur uses familiar human behavior — workplace politics, ambition, nepotism, and bureaucratic incompetence — to make the supernatural feel, well, rather ordinary. Hell has sumptuous apartments, career mobility, punishment by harpies, political maneuvering, and an actual bureaucracy. Its capital, Pandemonium, sits too far underground for sunlight, so Lucifer has manufactured his own sun and can’t stop bragging about it. Hell is a place people live, work, scheme — and occasionally suffer the indignity of office equipment that should have been replaced decades ago.
Because apparently, eternal damnation comes with middle management. Effie once enjoyed the freedom of bargaining for souls, but she recently got in trouble for helping another demon and was reassigned to the Office of Technology and Infernal Innovation. Her new job? Ragebaiting people on the internet. (Luckily, the devil has embraced remote work.) One day, she’s telling people in r/NoStupidQuestions to wrap their iPhones in aluminum foil and microwave them; the next, she’s claiming a peach-cobbler recipe failed after she substituted carrots for peaches and black beans for flour. The whole enterprise is delightfully ridiculous, and Bellefleur knows it. (And I delighted in it.)
And then there’s Georgia, a state that has already humbled the Devil once. (Lucifer still hasn’t gotten over that whole fiddle thing.) The small town of Silver Springs has a small-town matchmaking committee, folksy Southern expressions, a rooster-themed bed-and-breakfast, and a territorial dispute with garden gnomes. (Their leader is named Gnorman; the G is, of course, silent.) The jokes are silly in the best possible way, and they reveal something much bigger and more important about Effie: She may say she’s a demon who has no humanity left, but she can’t seem to stop helping people. That gives Bellefleur room to play with the idea of a soul. Effie supposedly surrendered hers to Lucifer, but what does having a soul actually say about someone’s morality? I mean, humans can commit atrocities while keeping theirs. And the book’s ideas about goodness, identity, moral agency, and love emerge from the choices its characters make.
I only wish that Bellefleur had taken a little more time with the ending. Lucifer is supposedly an unhinged and powerful threat, but the confrontation with him feels oddly easy. And while I appreciated that the book doesn’t resort to a third-act breakup (these two have enough complications without a manufactured misunderstanding), I feel like a centuries-old love story deserves a resolution that lingers a bit longer.
Still, I finished “Damned If I Do” thoroughly charmed — by its wildly imaginative setting, its gloriously nosy supporting cast, and its sheer delight in the messiness of being human, even when its heroine isn’t. And most of all by two people who manage to fall for each other again without becoming any less themselves. If Effie and Finn have another lifetime ahead of them, I’d happily spend a few hundred more pages watching them fall in love all over again.
That missing asterisk may be a problem for Hell’s marriage registry, but for the rest of us, it’s the start of a wonderful love story.
