Sinner’s Heart

In the third Hellraisers installment (after Demon’s Bride), Abraham “Bram” Stirling, Lord Rothwell, has sold his soul for the gift of being able to mentally compel women into sexual situations, which Archer calls “seduction.” Bram is damned for the sin of selfish refusal to battle the devil he’s helped unleash on 1763 London. Sent to show him his error is Valeria Livia Corva, the specter of an ancient Roman priestess, who has been bound to Bram and tasked with converting him from darkness. (Bound by whom and converting to what are left unspecified.) Livia nags relentlessly as Bram argues and stripteases. It’s as if the Ghost of Christmas Present had given up on show-and-tell to vamp Scrooge into repentance, and there’s little acknowledgment of the contradiction in having a man who sold his soul for lust be seduced into virtue. Livia and Bram have chemistry but nothing else in common, and their circumstances entirely lack plausibility. Agent: Kevan Lyon, Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. (Apr.)