Amber Benson returns with her second offering in the Calliope Reaper-Jones series.  This time out, Calliope, more comfortable with her lot in life as Death’s daughter, makes a deal with the guardian of hell’s gate that puts her future on the line and takes her to purgatory, ancient Egypt, and Las Vegas.

Benson certainly has the voice of her heroine down, but the story here lacked some of the stakes that made the first outing so enticing.  Things were moving along fine until the end, where everything seemed extremely rushed.  Hopefully, this was just a bit of a sophomore slump and that the next book will be a return to form.