For Whom the Belle Tolls by Jaysea Lynn – Review

Published: January 28, 2025

Publisher: Saga Press

Series: Hell’s Belles #1

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Pages: 640 (Kindle)

My Rating: 5 Stars

Synopsis:
They told her to go to Hell.
She went, but on her own terms.

Lily isn’t exactly thrilled with her arrival in the Afterlife, but what awaits her there is more fantastical than she ever could have Deities wait in line at the coffee shop. Fae flit between realms. Souls find ways to make death a beginning.

As she explores the many corners of the Afterlife, Lily finds herself surprisingly drawn to a place most people would avoid at all – Hell. Armed with years of customer service experience and pent-up sarcasm, Lily carves a job out for herself amongst Hell’s demons, sending souls to their rightful circles with more than a hint of sass.

Lily’s expectations are subverted every day in Hell—especially by Bel, a demon general with a distractingly sexy voice. The two meet by chance and form an immediate, deeply healing friendship, but the undeniable heat between them threatens to combust.

Meanwhile, something stirs beyond the boundaries of their world, threatening to destroy everything they’ve known and everything that could be…unless they fight like Hell to stop it.

This debut novel from BookTok sensation Jaysea Lynn invites you to lose yourself in a world where love ignites in the unlikeliest of places, magic defies the rules, and the Afterlife proves more thrilling than anyone could imagine.

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I was avoiding my self-imposed reading responsibilities and decided to pick up a random romantasy book. For Whom the Belle Tolls had surprisingly high ratings and the synopsis sounded fun, so I figured, why not? Much to my delight, this book was fantastic! I suppose it shouldn’t have been all that surprising, because tens of thousands of reviewers can’t be wrong, but wow!

This book starts off on a bit of a depressing note since the main character, Lily,  was diagnosed with and then dies of cancer within the first pages of the story. While I expected this because the story is about her life after life, as it were, it was still quite sad. Fortunately things turn around and get interesting and downright hilarious pretty quickly because Lily’s experience in the afterlife is memorable to say the least. She finds herself in her own personal paradise (a cozy cottage filled with books) and as she’s coming to terms with things, she decides to pay a visit to Hell to see what it’s really like. Lily is quick to spot some inefficiencies and just how awful humans can be, especially those destined for Hell, so she jumps in and volunteers to help out by putting all those years of customer service experience on the mortal plane to use. The Hellp Desk officially becomes a thing and the demons love her for it. Lily is getting lunch invites and she even starts gaming with some of her new demonic pals and their gaming buddies. 

This is where Lily first meets FuitBat, who in real life is actually General Beleth, one of the demon princes. They have instant rapport, and the dialogue is fantastic. I completely loved them and loved even more that they begin as friends and when they finally meet they are determined to try to stay friends despite the raging inferno that is their attraction. There’s so many facets to this story beyond Lily and Beleth’s relationship, but perhaps my favorite is Sharkie. Lily meets Sharkie, a little girl who thinks she belongs in Hell despite having earned Paradise, so Lily takes her to meet Lucifer (actually a very compassionate demon) so he can explain that she doesn’t belong there. Lily takes Sharkie in, helping her to overcome the trauma of her short, sad life and let me tell ya, I cried more than a few times. Also, the kid absolutely LOVES sharks and wears a shark costume and decided she wanted to be called Sharkie.

This book works through some serious topics in a fairly straightforward but very impactful way and portrays the ‘good’ side of the afterlife as a wonderfully varied place and even Hell is a place where redemption can be earned with a great deal of work. Don’t think this book is all tough topics that bring on all the emotions though. At its heart For Whom the Belle Tolls is a hilarious romantic fantasy with wonderful friendships, found family, and humor that I think anyone who deals with the public as part of their job can appreciate. I really loved this book and it’s one of my most surprising favorites of 2025!