He’s indebted to the Devil, and must do him 666 favors before he can earn his soul back. For his last favor, all Callum is expected to do is escort an unsuspecting human named Auggie from London to New York. Callum embarks on his journey accompanied by his irate cat, Narcissa, and Therese, a young girl from the village whom he accidentally turned into a frog. Callum and his small party face attacks along the way—but Callum also makes friends for the first time in his life. And Auggie is different; Callum falls deeper in love with him as the slow-burn story progresses. Unfortunately, the light worldbuilding and characters’ simplicity make this witchy tale lukewarm at best. Passive language makes the plot lack urgency and the story feel overly long in the lead-up to an anticlimactic, though happy, ending. Golems appear—Callum uses one as his potion shop clerk, and the Ember King has henchmen who are golems—but there’s no mention of the Jewish folklore surrounding the myth of the golem, and the fabled creatures are used as little more than plot devices. Main characters read white.
