The Eighth House

The Eighth House, Karen Sealy, Highbridge Press, 2000

In the early 1900s, Edward Hastings grows up on the Lower East Side of New York as the son of a career prostitute. One day, while his mother is being beaten up by Rick, the bordello owner, Hastings takes out a pistol and kills him. While still a teenager, Hastings runs the bordello for a while, until he is arrested and sent to juvenile prison, where he is killed in a fight with other inmates.

Edward finds himself in Hell, face to face with Satan. Edward learns many things, including how to manipulate electricity and change his appearance at will. Satan's intention is to send him back to earth on a mission to create as much pain, death and chaos as possible. Edward keeps a journal, written in a Latin dialect and filled with astrological charts, of his past and future activities.

It falls into the hands of Tericita Ellis, a Caribbean-American professional astrologer in present day New York City. Along with her new husband, Aaron Jacobs, a professor of ancient religions, Ellis deciphers the journal. They flee just before a Hastings-caused disaster hits the city when they realize that he will stop at nothing to retrieve the journal. If Satan finds out that the journal is missing, he will be most displeased.

For a first novel, this is sufficiently weird and creepy and very good. Some may question the prominent place given to astrology in this story, but that shouldn't take away from a novel that is more than worth reading.