Elizabeth Leiknes, The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns

When she was 11 years old, Lucy Burns swore she'd do anything if her sister recovered from a coma. Thirty-one years later, Lucy is 29 and she's doing it, the "anything" that was her part of the bargain she'd struck. It turns out that her prayers were answered by a party other than the one she'd expected. Now she's a "facilitator," guiding deserving souls to their afterlives in the fiery depths of...her basement. Well, not quite, but the door to her cellar is a portal to hell. Lucy anesthetizes her prey with mind control techniques that are a perk of her position—as are her ineffable beauty and agelessness.

The Sinful Life is a fun, light read, but not as tightly constructed as it might be. For example, the recurring references in the book to two movies dueling for attention in the novel—one about Hitler, the other Jesus Christ—don't seem to have a purpose (other than the good vs. evil parallel). Likewise, the Snow White car wash Lucy frequents doesn't seem to fit well in the story; nor do the snippets from a story being written by Lucy's love interest. Stepping back from the novel, then, one has reservations about its coherence, but the book is by no means a chore to get through, and Lucy turns out to be a more nuanced character than one supposes going into the story.