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Inferno by Kathryn Kelly

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Inferno gets 5-stars for the level of heat. It’s a very steamy read and a good choice for those that like taboo/age gap relationships.

It’s also a book with which you just need to sit back and enjoy the ride. The actual plot is beyond implausible. It may help if you realise from the get-go that Georgiana is the daughter of incredibly rich and famous parents herself, so her world is not the regular world.

But if you start thinking about it too much, you’ll stop enjoying the book. So just suspend your disbelief. To give you an example:

  • characters think about sex all the time: literally nothing else
  • a woman sends her underage granddaughter to be “looked after” by a rockstar on tour
  • you don’t usually restart someone’s heart from CPR (you keep blood pumping until a defibrillator arrives)

The amount of expletives and obscenities is intense. In many books this would feel overdone, but Inferno manages to get away with it as the tone is consistent.

The protagonists are well drawn if rather dramatic and angsty. The best drawn (and most credible) character is Cassandra, the mother of the heroine. She is very complex but her disintegration as her mental health collapses is believable.

Sloane’s reaction and behaviour at the end of the book is not believable, but it provides the opportunity for a sequel. I haven’t read the sequel yet, but it will be interesting to see how they get past his behaviour.