Sara Voss has already decided she wants to die when the Devil hears her cries.
After three years of grief, Sara has reduced her life to a calculation she can no longer make work. One night in her Detroit apartment, she calls into the darkness and asks only to be heard. Instead, she gets the Devil, an ancient being who has spent ten thousand years turning human desperation into contracts. Sara offers him the only thing she has left to trade: herself.
He accepts.
Less than an hour later, Sara learns that her brother and sister-in-law have been killed, leaving their eight-year-old daughter, Ellie, without a parent. Years earlier, Sara agreed to become Ellie's guardian. Now the woman who has already bargained away her future must somehow build one for a grieving child.
The Devil promises Sara that her contract will be fulfilled within days. Instead, he waits.
Fascinated by a woman who can desperately want her life to end while still choosing responsibility, he begins questioning the one belief on which he has built his existence: everyone wants something, and every human choice comes with a price.
Days become weeks. Weeks become months. Sara learns how to pack school lunches, navigate guardianship hearings, and care for Ellie while still struggling to care for herself. The Devil, whom Sara comes to call Micah, discovers something equally unfamiliar. He stays, even when there is nothing to gain.
But Hell was designed to survive hesitation, including his own. Sara's contract will not remain unfinished forever.
Darkly funny, intimate, and deeply human, INFERNO is an adult upmarket speculative novel about grief, responsibility, unexpected love, and what happens when the one discovers that a human life may be worth more than the bargain that claimed it.
After three years of grief, Sara has reduced her life to a calculation she can no longer make work. One night in her Detroit apartment, she calls into the darkness and asks only to be heard. Instead, she gets the Devil, an ancient being who has spent ten thousand years turning human desperation into contracts. Sara offers him the only thing she has left to trade: herself.
He accepts.
Less than an hour later, Sara learns that her brother and sister-in-law have been killed, leaving their eight-year-old daughter, Ellie, without a parent. Years earlier, Sara agreed to become Ellie's guardian. Now the woman who has already bargained away her future must somehow build one for a grieving child.
The Devil promises Sara that her contract will be fulfilled within days. Instead, he waits.
Fascinated by a woman who can desperately want her life to end while still choosing responsibility, he begins questioning the one belief on which he has built his existence: everyone wants something, and every human choice comes with a price.
Days become weeks. Weeks become months. Sara learns how to pack school lunches, navigate guardianship hearings, and care for Ellie while still struggling to care for herself. The Devil, whom Sara comes to call Micah, discovers something equally unfamiliar. He stays, even when there is nothing to gain.
But Hell was designed to survive hesitation, including his own. Sara's contract will not remain unfinished forever.
Darkly funny, intimate, and deeply human, INFERNO is an adult upmarket speculative novel about grief, responsibility, unexpected love, and what happens when the one discovers that a human life may be worth more than the bargain that claimed it.