Leiknes, Elizabeth: The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns

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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.