Review by Elizabeth C. Bunce
Anyone who’s worked in a 21st century office—particularly in the tech industry—knows the typical characters: arrogant techbro CEOs, checked-out middle-managers, cut-throat sales reps, and terrified demons accidentally trapped in our plane of existence. Oh, wait. That last one might just be in Caitlin Rozakis’s new Everyday Enchantments novel, Startup Hell, a followup to The Grimoire Grammar School Parent-Teacher Association, which I reviewed last year here at borg. Rozakis returns to the world of the magical quietly coexisting alongside the mundane, this time through the lens of main character Morgan (formerly Morgana), struggling to make her sales quotas at Zabloom!, a tech company selling—well, tech. Startup Hell is available now at bookshops and here at Amazon.
What kind of tech is never quite clear, and the corporate jargon bogs things down a bit. Morgan comes from a powerful magical lineage, but suffers from “magic dyslexia,” costing her a career in the family business, hunting demons for the Shadow Council. She’s not having much luck carving out a successful life away from the magical realm, either. Her sales targets keep shifting, her coworkers don’t support each other, and her boss has summoned a demon to help the company succeed. …And dies of a heart attack before sealing the deal, leaving Morgan to clean up the mess (typical!).
But it’s immediately obvious that demon Lucareoth—Luke for short—is as out of his depth as Morgan. Luke too is stuck in an unfulfilling sales gig (buying mortal souls). Far from the wicked menace of Morgan’s fears, Luke is hapless and adorable, enchanted with life on the mortal plane, and worried about returning to his boss empty-handed, without the soul he’d come to barter. Indeed, the stakes for Luke are even higher than if Morgan misses her sales quotas: Luke’s co-workers will eat him.
In her efforts to hide Luke from her demon-hunting mother and return him to his own plane, mortal soul in hand, Morgan inadvertently gets in hock with Luke’s boss, damning herself to an afterlife of servitude in the demon realm. The only way for Morgan and Luke to save themselves is to convince another Zabloom! co-worker to sell their soul—and they have the perfect candidate: Brad, the boneheaded CEO, who, it turns out, might actually be a little bit evil.
Not quite as strong or funny as Grimoire Grammar School, Startup Hell wins on romance. Luke is a delightful leading demon, sort of a devilish equivalent of Buddy the Elf, experiencing human existence with wide-eyed innocence and infecting Morgan with newfound optimism. You just want these two crazy kids to make it, despite the odds. Morgan’s insecurity and disillusionment are palpable, and the action and humor really kick in toward the back half of the book, once despicable techbro Brad is on the hook, and Morgan and Luke realize they’ve created a monster. A madcap romp across a convention floor showcases Rozakis’s talent at wacky humor.
The two Everyday Enchantments novels share a world, but each book stands alone, with only one brief overlapping appearance from a single character—readers can jump in anywhere. No doubt Rozakis and Titan Books plan further hilarious misadventures in magic for readers to enjoy.
Startup Hell is available now at your favorite bookshop and here at Amazon.
