To Hell and Back [Dramatized Adaptation]

Written by Lilith Saintcrow

Narrated by A Full Cast, Joe Brack, Thomas Keegan and 14 more

Dante Valentine has been through Hell. Literally. Her body shattered and her mind not far behind, she's dumped back into her own world to survive--or not--as a pawn in one of Lucifer's endless games.

Unfortunately, he's just messed with the wrong Necromance. And thistime she's mad enough to do something about it.

This time, the Devil will pay.

• Language: English
• Publisher: GraphicAudio
• Release date: Jun 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781648793486

Lilith Saintcrow

Lili Saintcrow lives in Vancouver, Washington, with a library for wayward texts.

Reviews for To Hell and Back [Dramatized Adaptation]

[anotherdarnreader · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved the entire series and I know it has to end somewhere but I think given all of the unanswered questions that are left and some of the powerful characters that were kept in the background there could easily be another book or two in this series. I will miss reading about Dante Valentine and Japh.

[illise_montoya · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Good action. Good tension. Epic climax. But is it perfect? Certainly not.

I feel this book is more like 3 1/2 stars, but because I don't want to scare people away, I clicked on 4 instead of 3. It's accurate enough. I look at To Hell and Back more favorably than unfavorably. Still, this is perhaps my least favorite of the series, which is a shame, since this is the last installment for Dante Valentine.

If you want broader details of the good points in this book, just look at my other reviews for the books in this series. The good points are pretty much the same. The only thing I could possibly add regards the cast of characters. By this point in Dante's adventures, she surrounds herself by some pretty interesting people.

My biggest frustration with this book, I suppose, was how so many questions are left unanswered. I can forgive some things being left up to the readers interpretation, but I think too much was left open ended. For example: What happened to Leander? Just what are Vann and McKinley if not human? Why does Dante feel particularly drawn toward the fear of humans? What becomes of Eve's plans for Hell? Why is Jace appearing to Dante as a loa? What the hell are Abra and Jado? What is the story behind Fudoshin? Did Dante really fail her promise to Doreen, or did she perhaps misinterpret what was otherwise a very brief meeting with her former lover in Death's country?

Yes, I know. I can infer answers to all of these. But in my opinion that's quite a broad range of things to have to guess at for the ending of an otherwise epic series. I know the focus of the series was on other things, but just because these questions didn't take up the core of the plot, that doesn't change the fact that as a reader I was interested in learning about them.

I also found myself a little underwhelmed by the revelations regarding hediairas. I had already surmised a lot of what the "revelations" were. As I stated above, one of the curiosities I was interested in regarded Dante and her unusual attraction to fear. Sure, you can explain that away as, "It's because she's a demon." But that feels like such a lazy answer. Every time Saintcrow brought up Dante's drunken reaction to the fear of others, I thought she was going to suggest that perhaps Danny could feed off of fear the way Japhrimel fed off of blood and sex. It would have added an entirely new aspect to the story, and perhaps a new challenge for Dante as she had to control this. Saintcrow never really went anywhere with it though, and it felt like an opportunity lost.

Also, in my last review, I mention how Dante gets pretty bratty a few times. In this installment, she doesn't get as bratty as often, and I say that because her rash behavior was not "bratty." It was the actions of a person on the edge. A lot of reviewers complained about Danny's disagreeable thinking, but geez give the girl a break. From book 3-5 she's been running in fear, and pain, and emotional turmoil with practically no breaks in between. Wouldn't you get a bit crazy if you were hunted by demons, lost numerous friends, were physically and emotionally violated, and lied to by the one person you cannot help but love? Less understandable is how Dante insists on trusting Eve blindly, without more facts, or at least better understanding what it was that Doreen meant when they spoke in the afterlife. I thought their exchange was on the side of ambiguous, but Dante bullies onward as if a geas was laid on her.

Oh, and the repetitive thinking. Yeah, that's still an issue.

Last negative: By the fifth book, you'd think we'd ease up a bit on the world-building information. Not really. Saintcrow still goes to incredible lengths to explain Dante's world as if this were the first book in the series, not the last. 75% of the way through the book, I got really impatient and skimmed these parts. They really bogged down the story's pace.

The ending felt bittersweet, and I definitely felt there was room for the series to continue. It seems it won't, though Saintcrow might have hinted in her appendix in the DV anthology that she might resume writing Dante Valentine if she feels it would be natural to do so.

I don't regret my investment in the series, though. I'm curious to see what else the author has done.

[mlsimmons-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was not a great ending. I think that there are still a lot of unanswered questions. I am still not a fan of Japh. I think he could have shared more information with Dante. I also think Dante could have made better decisions.

[lethe20 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Tough, bloody, hard-nosed - and absolutely superb. A gritty, harsh AU where the Devil and his demons are real, and very, very dangerous...but so is Ms. Valentine. Remarkable for being a finite series, instead of being milked to death the way Laurell K. Hamilton has done with her Anita Blake series.

[raenstorm_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Really enjoyed the Dante Valentine series overall. Not entirely satisified with the "ending" we get here but I do think it may be the only kind of conclusion we could get from Dante.I still spent a lot of the time confused by what exactly was going on (a reason I think I was less than satisified with the ending, because we still didn't get explanations). Of course, Danny seemed to have that issue too so maybe that was intentional? Either way, it was a bit frustrating at times. But I was drawn in by the characters and wanted to know how things were going to turn out so I'd give the whole series four stars overall.

[lewispike · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The end of the series.If you've following it this far there are few surprises... Dante is torn between Eve and Japh, but decides (in the immortal words of her sensei to "Do, not think" which is not exactly the smartest move ever...They collect the bits of a knife that can slay demons. Dante enters a blurring world of self-hate and anger - it's implied this is due to the knife to some extent.There's plenty of fast, well written action.Dante finally acknowledges that whether or not she trusts what Japh says, she trusts that he will act to protect her and there's a rather surprising mostly happy ending.

[krau0098 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the 5th (and last) book in the Dante Valentine series by Lilith Saintcrow. It was okay; not as good as some of the previous ones, but okay.The book starts with Dante (Danny) being expelled from Hell in an alley; she has taken quite a beating from Lucifer and can't remember much of it. Lucas comes to her rescue and Danny is soon reunited with Japh. Danny finds that in her absence Japh has been tearing apart the world looking for her, and he has declared rebellion against Lucifer. In order to kill the devil Japh is determined to get a special knife that was made for hedaira to wield against demons. He has determined that Danny will use it to kill the Lucifer. Of course Japh, is also out to kill Eve and Danny is hell-bent on protecting Eve. Danny exerts her independence against Japh and makes a "hell" of a mess out of everything...again.There were a lot of things about this book that bothered me. I don't understand why Danny is so blindly faithful to Eve; Eve jerks her around just as much (if not more than) Japh. Danny is not blindly faithful to anyone; why should she be faithful to Eve? On the flip side Danny is horribly unfaithful to Japh. I don't understand why. Both characters lied to her a ton; yet only one of them was supportive of her.By the end of this book I really, really disliked Danny as a character. She was a physical and emotional mess the whole book. She rarely took any action on her own. When she did take action, the action she took seemed to be thoughtless and to just be an excuse to use power. Danny basically screwed up through this whole book.While Japh is not a perfect character; he seemed to act at least consistently throughout the book. It would have been nice to know a bit more about Japh and his past. It would have been nice to know more about why Japh fell for Danny. The only explanation he gave was that "She treated him like a human"; you can't tell me that that has never happened before to him in all of the thousands of years he has existed.For some reason a lot of this book kind of got under my skin and irritated me. Maybe it was too drawn out or just too inconsistent. It left you with more questions than answers. While it was a decent ending to this series; I think it could have been better. Maybe Saintcrow will write a series about Japh or Lucas; I think they were much more interesting than Danny. I guess we will see.

[jjmcgaffey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Huh. Mostly, I'm glad I'm done with it. By the end of the third book, Dante was too damaged to be interesting any more - she was just too broken in too many directions. At least they reached closure of a sort - I was afraid it would be either Dante or Japh who would have to be Prince, or the two of them. Demons enjoy destruction and betrayal way too much - by the end of the fourth book, there was no one I trusted enough to be interested in (the assorted demons, Leander, Lucas - at least the Hellesvront agents stuck to one side!). It's a well-written story, but way too dark for me. I prefer her romances, where there's at least a reasonable happy ending. I'll keep trying, reading her other books, because she is an excellent writer, but I don't think I'll ever reread Dante Valentine.

[sereq_ieh_dashret · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very fast paced. From a certain point of the plot onwards, the characters change allegiances in a blink. A great conclusion for an adrenalinic series.

[thebooknerd · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Another series put to bed. All things considered, I'm satisfied with this conclusion to the Dante Valentine books. The story was drawn to a nice close without any real cliffhangers to drive a person crazy and there was plenty of both action and character development. Definitely not a cop-out book the way some authors end a complicated series. And this was a complicated story if for no other reason than trying to figure out the main character. Traumatized, instinctively violent, emotionally needy -- Danny is a love-hate relationship personified. Then there's Japhrimel, tenderly protective lover and controlling, treacherous demon that he is. It's interesting how as the books went along he became more and less than he was in book one. It's also frustrating to get the story from only Danny's perspective as so much of their relationship goes unspoken. Certainly, though, this final installment sheds more light on Japh, the A'nankhimel, and their hedairae than all four previous books combined.