Demon Can't Help it by Kathy Love

Josephine Burke is fleeing the halls of Washington D.C. to escape a bad love affair and the mess she's made of her life. Not only did she trust the wrong man, he was really the wrong man, because he was married and never told her. Once she ran from him, she never looked back, and ended up coming to New Orleans to try and rebuild her life and her confidence.

There, she meets Maksim Kostova, a sexy bartender with a secret of his own: he's actually a demon, Lord of the 8th Circle of Hell, meant to lie, seduce and decieve. But when he meets Jo, he finds that his feelings for her are anything but a deception. In fact, they may be the truest emotions he's ever felt. For Jo, he finds himself working at the same daycare center for underpriviledged kids she does, enduring snot, vomit and sticky fingers just so he can get close to her. But she seems unusually troubled, and he wants to know what's the matter so he can help her.

Jo feels like she's going crazy. She keeps getting glimpses of a small girl in a rainbow swimsuit that she's sure is her long-dead sister, and also of a dark-haired woman who can only mime what she wants. Is Jo, who doesn't believe in the Paranormal, and who is scared of ghosts, going crazy? Or is something else going on? How can she deal with seeing these things if doing so makes her so afraid she seizes up?

Maksim originally came to this city to find his sister, Ellina, who was a writer specializing in books on Demons, but when he finds out that Jo is pregnant, he is even more determined to keep her safe. How can be confess to her what he really is when the supernatural scares Jo so very deeply? Is there any possible way for the two of them to be together?

I had a hard time getting into this novel, because neither of the characters really attracted me much at the beginning. Jo is scared and in denial, and we don't find out much about her at the beginning. I began to suspect at least one of her secrets, that she was pregnant, early on, though the description of her that is given. Apparently the writer was attempting to conceal it, but the nondescript way they are mentioned stood out like a red flag for me.

Maksim was more interesting, but we are never given any real reason why he falls so hard for Jo. She doesn't fall all over him- okay, so maybe he's offended that she isn't attracted to him? But I just never got the sense of why he was attracted after that.

The story is tied up nicely and neatly at the end with a bow, but the characters remain sort of distant from the story all the way through, and the reason why Maksim goes from a seduction-deciever demon to someone who can be with Jo and want to stay with her forever was, in my opinion, handwaved away by the writer. Oh, his faults can be turned around if he really falls in love? Gee, who knew! The fact that all of this is done in a single line near the end of the book just annoyed me.

Does true love redeem him from his fall? (Given that demons are only fallen angels according to Christian myth). Will he and Jo end up in Hell when they die? We never know, because these issues aren't addressed, even though they were definitely questions in my mind when I read the story. I can't recommend this book because it had plot holes and unanswered questions big enough to drive a semi through. And the late game handwaving of objections totally annoyed me. Avoid this book.