Rating: 5 Stars

Publisher: Self-Published

Genre: Gay Romance/MM

Tags: PNR, Some Kind of Darker Moments/Concepts, Humorous

Length: 222 pages

Reviewer: Kazza

Purchase At: amazon, author’s page

Blurb:

Rowan
I’m a hellhound who doesn’t love murdering evil people. Well, of course I’d like to see them dead, but I’d rather not deal with talking to them or getting messy. I like a nice, orderly existence. Milo (who I still think may be a chaos demon) is the opposite of orderly, yet I can’t seem to stay away from him. If he wants me to come on a few jobs with him, I’m happy to help. After all, he does all the awkward talking and stuff. I just get to be scary looking.

Milo
I’m not sure how I ended up becoming an assassin, but I don’t mind the work. When I meet a sexy, redheaded man who may be the worst liar I ever met (he totally burned down that cabin), I decide maybe I’ll keep him around. Yeah, his cover stories suck, but he seems to be good at scaring people. Must be those colored contacts he wears, because no one actually has flames in their eyes. Right?

Paranormal M/M Romance; Milo/Rowan; “Because Canon Sucks” multi-author series; burning down a cabin is a great meet-cute; Rowan sucks at cover stories; Milo accidentally became an assassin for people in a retirement community; Rowan loves baked goods; Milo may be trying to kill Rowan with his homemade baked atrocities; retirement homes make the best found family; Rowan doesn’t really like killing people, but Milo does so it’s fine; only very bad people die; Ray needs to find a nice guy to date; Riley will either kill Milo or become his best friend; hellhounds have tails, and they know how to use them.

Hellhound AU is a MM fanfiction style novel, based on the Canon short story written by AM Rose for the multi author series Because Canon Sucks. In Canon, Milo and Rowan miss out on their happy ever after, so this series strives to give them one in every other universe.

Review:

“Come on, eat up. Abusive husbands don’t threaten themselves, you know.” 

Apparently there are a number of books in this Because Canon Sucks multi-author series. This is the only book I’ve read because I’ve previously read some of the Hellhounds of Paradise Falls books by Shannon Mae. The book is written like fanfic with author notes at the beginning of every chapter. The fact that it’s Toby who’s writing the story – How to Flirt With a Hellhound – it’s his notes prior to every chapter, was an absolute blast for me and, trust me, I read every. Single. Crazy. Note. Toby and Dex were my favourites in the Hellhounds series, and Toby is a writer of dark PNR, so this made complete sense to me, this book within a book.  

Milo is a human. But, you know, it’s up for robust debate. One who will most likely kill you by tripping over you or knocking you over while he has a gun or knife or taser in his hand, and it’s not always likely that the weapon will cause your death.

 The first time had actually been more of an accident than a purposeful killing, not that the asshole didn’t deserve it. Then when Beatrice had asked me to take care of another guy who was hurting her granddaughter, I’d had a hard time saying no. And so I found myself serving as an assassin (among other things) for a group of folks at a retirement home.

Also, his cooking is nasty. His driving is messy, but he doesn’t seem to realise it. Nor does he let anything get in the way of whatever he’s on a mission to achieve. Milo sees himself as a problem solver. He has the time and the comfort of being able to problem solve full-time. Oh, and he also eats apples from the bottom up. Definitely different. I’m not sure he ate anything outside of apples for the entirety of the book. Rowan, a hellhound, feels that it has to make him a chaos demon, or chaos demon adjacent, the whole eating an apple from the bottom up – maybe that’s something to do with the multi-author universe. No matter what it meant, it made me laugh.  

So Milo is – fucking ridiculously – an assassin for some elderlies, (the endearment my grandson likes to call us older folk) at a retirement village. The retirees have definite views on dealing with or bumping off certain people for the common good. Maybe because they’ve messed with their family. Just like the Hellhounds of Paradise Falls know a rotten soul worth dispatching to Hell when they smell it, these retirees use their long-lived spidey senses, a few pieces or research, and some weirdly hacked facts. Not to mention some strategic glitter dildos – that cracked me up.

Where Milo and his cadre of the elderly have no issues doing the unaliving, Rowan isn’t quite so passionate about that side of his hellhound job description. I mean, unlike the other hellhounds of Mae’s, Rowan doesn’t torture, he just dispatches. Milo on the other hand, well, he’s not adverse to a bit of torture.

Before I could say anything, Milo reached over, grabbed the guy’s pinkie finger, and bent it in a way it should not have bent. I heard the crack, Kevin screamed, and Milo cackled in glee.

That’s how they meet – Rowan had just burnt down a cabin with several cult leaders in it. Hellfire and all that jazz. Milo was on his way to the same cabin that Rowan just beat him to. Not that Rowan owns up to there ever being a cabin. Milo knows Rowan is lying because the cabin is currently on fire behind him. Nice try, Rowan. But Milo is in the forest with a big wheelie suitcase. Nothing like some forest hiking with a travel suitcase. Not suspicious at all. Two can play at the ‘what cabin, what cultists?’ game. Wink wink.

From their initial meet-cute the pair just are. They seem incapable of being apart, instantaneously existing in the same orbit. I mean, there are neo-Nazis and bad partners and kidnapped relatives to deal with. Blocked drains too. They won’t take care of themselves! A hellhound and a human ‘chaos demon’ seem to have the same job description. So it all makes sense, right? The answer is yes. Yes, it does. It also helps that they both find each other attractive.

I finally tore my eyes up to his face. I was going to ask what the heck he was doing naked in my woods in the middle of the day, but then I didn’t really want to make him feel bad for being in my woods naked. Because naked Rowan was a glorious sight.

The human retirees, or Milo’s ‘crew’, take to Rowan. Likewise, Rowan’s family of harpies and supernatural beings also take to Milo. It’s a match made in Shannon Mae’s Toby’s mind. I was here for it. 

Milo had hung up on Riley. I stared at the phone like it was going to grow teeth and bite me. People did not hang up on Riley. My sister was vicious.

Riley respects Milo’s attitude. While her brother does kill bad people, he really is more of a pacifist hellhound. Hmm. The previous sentence sounds like a big old oxymoron but I promise it actually makes sense in this Canon Sucks world.   

So yeah, this book is quirky. Loved that. I also found the MCs incredibly endearing. Also loved that. Shannon Mae has this hyperactive way of writing at times, the story can bounce around like a freaking pinball, but I find it entertaining, sometimes a tad berserk in the most amusing way.

“What the fuck is going—” Greg started, but he didn’t finish, because I pulled a taser out of my pocket and shot him with it.
“I said we’re in the middle of a conversation, Greg, so maybe shut the fuck up.”

Mae knows how to write compelling characters and stories. Toby and Dex – How to Flirt With a Hellhound – remain on my all-time favourite characters’ list, and they are exceedingly pinball-y and chaotic. Especially Toby. Mae also has the ability to make a story fun with some pathos injected as well. In this story Milo’s family have all passed away but ‘Aunt’ Ethel is one of the retirees. They have a good relationship. There’s plenty of action with bad guys, cultists, burning cabins, a dog fighting ring, etc, but then there’s this touching moment where Milo and Aunt Ethel briefly discuss some more intimate details from when his Aunt Anabelle was alive. It simply works. Shannon Mae knows how to balance things in an entertaining, respectful, ‘Lord, help me, I can’t help but care for these characters’ kind of way.     

My only complaint, and it’s really a personal preference thing, is the use of the word boo that Milo uses as an endearment for Rowan. It didn’t gel with me. Strawberry milkshake of a man definitely worked for me. And to honour that description, I have added the ginger visual above. You’re welcome.

Originally I rated Hellhound AU as 4 stars on Goodreads but I read it in a day and I’m back at work which means I have very, very limited time but I found the time to keep reading. I also find myself currently up late at night reviewing it. I’ve started re-reading it as well because fun. If Hellhound AU comes out in audiobook, depending on the narrators, I’ll be grabbing it in that format too. For all those reasons, it’s well worth every one of the 5 Stars! of my re-rating.