Miserere: An Autumn Tale

Exorcist Lucian Negru condemned his girlfriend Rachael to Hell to save the soul of his sister Catarina, who doesn't want to be saved in the first place and continues to side with evil fallen angels in a war against Heaven. Eventually, after being tortured by his ungrateful sister for years, Lucian escapes and rescues a perky young girl named Lindsay from Hell in penance. Meanwhile, Rachael survives but is partially possessed by a demon%E2%80%94and it's all rather turgid and curiously unaffecting. The book takes place in the battleground between Heaven and Hell%E2%80%94a place called Woerld, presumably because it is full of woe. Woerld is supposedly vast and full of dramatic battles and sieges, but this is overshadowed by the protagonist's personal pain in detail, leaving the setting vague and claustrophobic. While Frohock is a promising first-time author with clean prose and original characters, the story struggles. This is a book for fans of melodramatic grim, dark fantasy, but the average reader will lose patience. (July)