Book Review of HELLBOUND by Stephanie Binx + Author Q&A
- Rosie J.
- 24 hours ago
- 13 min read
Hi friends!!
It's time for another Book Review!
I am so excited to bring you this amazing debut romantic fantasy novel Hellbound that released August 25th, 2026 from Alcove Press, plus a Q&A with the author Stephanie Binx.
I have had the distinct privilege of knowing Stephanie for a few years through the query trenches, submission hell, and now book publication. And while Hellbound and The Tinsel Twist are on entirely separate ends of the spectrum, we beta read for each other. So I am thrilled to bring you my review of Hellbound and the following interview with Stephanie.
The spoiler free book review...
[Click the picture for a purchase link or find it at the end of the blog]
While you may think my review is biased, as a longtime fan of series like Karen Marie Moning's Fever series and Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mystery series (plus the True Blood show), I can assure you even if I didn't know Stephanie, I would still be this feral for this book. It checks all the right boxes on my devourable books list.
I gave this book a wholehearted rating of 5 stars, and I feel that's not enough.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Y’all… I don’t know where to start with this book. My general response to it since the first time I read it has been feral screeching but that doesn’t give anyone else a true picture of how absolutely amazing Hellbound is. Binx has crafted an utterly intense, delicious, debut that might make you clutch your pearls but will definitely grab you by the throat (with some big, sexy demon hands).
I feel blessed by the bisexual disaster goddesses to have read Hellbound for the first time before Binx had even signed with her agent. When I finished that version I sat with my feelings for a few moments before I turned to my partner and said “it’s truly amazing to get to read something before most everyone else and just know it’s going to go somewhere one day.” And I am thrilled that I can now enthusiastically screech about Hellbound to anyone who will listen.
I recently re-read the updated version for publication, and while different in some ways from the original story I read first, it captures, and even amplifies, all the grit and cosmic horror and despair and definitely the sexual tension (that tension is tensioning) of the original. Not to mention the twist that you likely won’t see coming. Couple all of that with a shadow daddy (Mr. Vale) who has stayed with me longer than any other similar mysterious immortal male lead has since I first met Jericho Z. Barrons in Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series (IYKYK) and a whole cast of misfit characters you’re going to want more of (except Greg. F*ck Greg), and you have a recipe for a book that will linger with you and that you’re going to want to read again and again.
Marian is a perfect lead for 2026 in all of her chaotic glory (although she’d rebut the glory part and the perfect part), just trying to survive in the dumpster fire she’s been forced into and doing what she can to claw her way out, including dying at the hands of Mr. Vale to retrieve artifacts from Hell for exorbitant sums of money that don’t even put a dent in her debt. I think a lot of people will relate to Marian’s situation, because Binx has skilfully crafted a commentary on greed in capitalism, religious trauma, and living in survival mode while struggling with mental illness, all wrapped up in a gritty, contemporary fantasy package with a Mr. Vale cherry on top (and a side of Pop-Tarts for dessert). And while Marian and Vale have their own weird romance, Marian’s true HFN (happy for now) comes from the found family she gains along the way, helping her learn her self-worth and showing her she’s not actually alone in this world.
If I could give this 10 stars I would. Thank you to Binx for creating this masterpiece that I still think about regularly. I cannot wait to read what you write next. (And I sure hope it has some more of Mr. Vale...)
Q&A with Debut Author Stephanie Binx
Rosie: First of all, congratulations on your amazing debut Hellbound. A book that truly lives rent free in my mind. Was this the first book you’ve ever written? Tell us a little bit about how you got started writing and what inspired you to write.
Steph: Thank you so much!! Unless you count the 75k Mass Effect fanfic I finished in 2012, then yes, this is the first book I’ve ever written. Not for lack of trying, though. There were a lot of false starts before Hellbound, but it wasn’t until lockdown 2020 when I, and a bazillion other people, started writing a book.
The isolation forced me to confront a lot of memories and feelings I’d been running from, and I’d just binged a lot of Lucifer (TV show). That was the beginning of Hellbound, which changed drastically over many drafts. It’s be several more years before I’d get to write “the end.”
Rosie: You went the traditional route, with getting an agent and submitting to publishers, tell us about the journey to get into traditional publishing. It varies so wildly for everyone that I like to ask this to get different author's perspectives.
Steph: I always feel a little weird talking about my traditional publishing journey because it felt very atypical for most authors. I didn’t send out many queries, and I wasn’t on submission for very long, and I sold my very first book. I started by attending a free webinar about the querying process, then I found my online community, and gave it a shot. I ended up sending about 20 queries, received four full requests, and ultimately one offer. Hellbound sold after about four months on submission. But I didn’t go to auction or get an especially high advance. Things moved relatively quickly, but quietly for me.
[Note for this next question, this interview was done prior to release. Hellbound is now available!]
Rosie: Hellbound comes out on August 25, 2026. How are you feeling right now in anticipation of your debut? Excited? Scared? All the things?
Steph: All of the above, definitely. It feels like I have so much to do, yet so little control over anything. Truthfully, I’ve had to let another project completely absorb me so I don’t think about this launch. If I didn’t let myself be absorbed by another project, I’d obsess over a bunch of awful questions, like “What if this book flops?” “Did I do enough to market myself?” “What if no one reads this at all?”
When I mute all that noise though, I just feel so proud of this book, and grateful to the people who helped me get to this point.
Rosie: Hellbound is going to Ukraine! What was it like getting a translation deal?
Steph: It was actually a very hands-off experience! My agency brokered the deal and let me know when we had an offer. I was absolutely ecstatic that a foreign publisher had taken an interest in this dark and twisty little book. I’m not sure when Hellbound will hit shelves in Ukraine, but I hope I get to hold a copy of the Ukrainian edition in my hands someday.
Rosie: Ah, I hope you will be able to get a copy too! That's so exciting.
Alright, let’s talk some about your book. First of all, why did you decide to set Hellbound in Los Angeles? I know you use Lucifer as one of your comps, which I definitely had to watch because I love Hellbound so much, but what made LA a good fit for Marian’s chaos and for Vale and the other demons who seem to love it there?
Steph: Hah, personal experience. I spent some of the weirdest and worst years of my life in LA, so when it came time to sit down and write Marian’s story, I knew it had to happen in LA. I’m from Southern California originally, but when I was 12, my family moved to Oregon, which I love. But during the recession, we lost our house and ended up with no choice but to stay with family in LA. I was stuck working retail and living out of a suitcase, all while trying to pay back my student loans. It wasn’t a great time.
LA is one of the most diverse cities I’ve ever lived in, and seeing so many different cultures and communities thriving there earned it a special place in my heart. It’s also pure chaos, which made it a perfect setting for a chaotic demon book. The freeways, the sprawl, the sheer size of it, the inescapable influence of Hollywood. There’s insane wealth and some extremely toxic institutions there, but the heart of LA is something really, really cool that I will defend forever. Paul and Tori to me are the heart of LA; good, grounded people just trying to survive in a messed-up society.
Rosie: Ah, I've only been to LA once, but I've had friends who have lived there and had similar stories or sentiments that you've just shared, so that makes perfect sense to me!
So other than your obvious inspiration from your time spent in LA, what were some of your other influences or inspirations for writing Hellbound?
Steph: A lot of things, probably. I think there are bits and pieces of all sorts of media that influenced Hellbound, some of which are probably not what you’d expect. Like The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis, or Shadowbringers—my favorite expansion to FFXIV, which I played for over ten years.
Rosie: Wow, you're right, I was definitely not expecting C.S. Lewis to be included there!
Aside from L.A., Hellbound is also set in Hell, but this Hell is different from any traditional vision one might conjure up when they hear the word “hell.” Hell is empty and all the demons are in L.A. and Marian is a helldiver who goes to collect artifacts from this empty, desolate hell to try to help these demons remember. Tell us a bit about what went into building this alternate version of hell that is creepy in its barren wasteland vibes, but still has all the cosmic influence. And, I don’t want to get too spoilery, but there is a monstrous antagonist in Hell. If you want to speak to that any, you can, but if you think that could get too spoilery, then people will just have to read!
Steph: I don’t think I can get into the monster without risking spoilers, but I can talk about Hell!
There are a couple of artists who influenced how I visualized hell. The video game franchise Silent Hill, too. I tried to think of paintings and environments that have unsettled me before, and what it was about them that unsettled me. Like things that should not be possible, like infinite hallways and stairwells. Walls that move, and the fusion of organic and inorganic. Places that feel dead and alive all at once. Liminal at times, but mostly wrong.
The Hell of Hellbound is hardly the Backrooms, but I think they share a kind of wrongness. A certain “this makes no fucking sense and no one can explain it.”
Rosie: Early reviews are showing that readers are really resonating with certain themes in Hellbound like religious trauma, grief, found family, surviving in a capitalistic hellscape... Can you talk a little bit about what went into layering these themes into a book that is on the surface about a woman who dies to go to Hell for demons in order to survive.
Steph: This may be me getting too personal, but it’s also the truth—I pulled from my own experiences. My struggles with mental illness, extremely low self-worth, and loss I’d never really processed because I was in survival mode for so long. I was diagnosed with major depression in my teen years. Things would get better, then worse, and then peak when I was diagnosed with PPA and PPD after I had my son.
Marian’s occupation as a diver—someone who dies for a living—is extreme self-loathing in action. We learn fairly early on that unlike most divers, she’s not driven solely by money. There is a very grisly, very tragic reason for why she does this to herself. But we also see how her financial circumstances, and those in positions of power, make it seem like she has no other way to pay back her debts. How many of us have felt like we have to kill ourselves just to scrape by? That’s Marian to an extreme. None of us are lining up to literally drown and go to Hell to make rent, but I think the sentiment is there for a lot of us.
Rosie: Ain't that the truth. I've spent the majority of my life working multiple jobs and never being able to get ahead. I think a lot of our generation especially can relate to that and to Marian in that respect. It's definitely part of the reason she resonated so much with me.
Adding to that and diving (pun intended) a bit more into Marian's character, authors tend to torture their characters, usually disrupting their seemingly good lives, but Marian starts out already on the struggle bus. Maybe even strapped to the front of it, lol. Why did you decide to write a character who was already broken and barely able to afford stale Pop-Tarts for dinner, and what went into figuring out how to break her even more before letting her claw her way out?
Steph: So I really wanted to see the sort of antihero I felt was missing in the books I loved growing up—someone who doesn’t have it together, someone who can’t just shrug the bad stuff off—because that to me was my own experience, and I wanted it represented. I just never found it.
Hence I wrote my own.
I think there are a lot of us—like a WHOLE lot of us who’d agree we are barely holding on, and yet we are going to class, going to work, raising kids, all while falling apart behind the scenes. We are struggling, and personally, I’m tired of pretending I’m not. Marian doesn’t announce to the world that she’s at rock bottom; she doesn’t have to. It’s plain to see she’s not in a good place, yet she keeps trucking on.
I think for a lot of us, we have these days where we’re just not as good at pretending. It gets worse before it gets better, and I needed Marian to be at that low point already so we could see her get even lower. I think that makes the healing all that more powerful when we finally get to see it.
Rosie: Okay, now that we've talked a bit about Marian, we have to explore Vale. Damn. Vale is my new favorite Shadow Daddy. You know I love Jericho Z. Barrons from Moning’s Fever series, and for a long time JZB held the top spot in my favorite ancient mysterious man, but I am OBSESSED with Vale. What went into crafting this delicious, dark, shadow daddy who is hard around the edges but also has a soft side?
Steph: Oh ho ho, well, you see, we have the same taste in shadow daddies. Zaddies? I’ve been told that Vale is a “zaddy.”
Jericho Barrons was an inspiration, as I was obsessed with the Fever series when I discovered it. But I think I pulled pieces from lots of the shadowy leads I’ve crushed on over the years. Jean Claude from the Anita Blake series, Sylus from Love and Deepspace, Eric Northman from the Southern Vampire Mysteries. You know. Assholes. But assholes who are soft for the people they care about.
Rosie: Yaaaaassss softie assholes. That's a perfect description.
The Hellbound experience wouldn't be complete without the found family aspect. So let's talk about your side characters, Paul and Tori. You’ve managed to create side characters who have depth and who readers root for. Did you always have these side characters in mind to be found family and support for Marian or did they develop across the course of drafting and revising?
Steph: I had Tori in my eye from the beginning, and she changed very little draft to draft—including what she becomes to Marian. Paul was an epiphany, and his relationship with Marian surprised and delighted me, because I sure as heck did not plan what happened there. It’s now one of my favorite dynamics in the book.
Rosie: There are a few different antagonists in Hellbound, and each is terrifying in their own way. What went in to crafting different levels of antagonists to give Marian hell, literally and metaphorically. Also, fuck Greg.
Steph: Oh man. I thought about the different forms evil takes. From cosmic nightmare monsters to incels and fuckboys, I decided I wanted it all. Marian needed a lot of enemies.
Rosie: What else can we expect from you in the future for your next book?
Steph: It’s a secret :>
Rosie: Oooooo.... mysterious. I can't wait to find out!
For fun! What are you currently reading or if you could only recommend one book (romance, fantasy, or otherwise), what would it be and why?
Steph: The Dark In Her Veins by M.K. Lobb! I inhaled this book this month. It’s dark romantasy with a noir flare, set in a world run by religious fanatics. It’s fast, it’s spicy, and it has razor-sharp banter. Don’t sleep on it!
Rosie: I'm going to have to add that to my TBR. Any parting advice for writers trying to pursue traditional publishing?
Steph: Get a group chat, and don’t give up! Also, your fellow authors are not your competition—we need to support each other.
Rosie: That is such solid advice. I co-sign 100%.
Alright, I have to ask in honor of Marian, what’s your favorite Pop-Tart flavor?
Steph: Sorry, but I’m very basic when it comes to Pop-Tarts. It’s strawberry.
Sadly, that wraps up our interview with Stephanie Binx. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed hosting it. If you enjoyed Steph's vibes in this interview then definitely check Hellbound, but pleeeeaaaase read the trigger/content warnings before you dive in.
Here are some places that you can follow Stephanie and keep up with what's coming next. Also, catch her at an upcoming virtual or in-person event!
Link | Stephanie Binx on Instagram
Link | Stephanie Binx's Website (Newsletter sign-up on website)
Link | Hellbound on Goodreads
And don't miss these events!
Virtual Spoiler Chat
September 16th, 2026 || 4:00pm - 5:00pm PT
Instagram Live with Grace Morrow
Grimm Market
October 24th, 2026 || 5:00pm - 8:00pm PT
We Be Bookin' || Monroe, Washington
Let me know in the comments if you pick up Hellbound or if you've read it and what you thought! But don't just tell me. Leave a review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, and wherever you can! Review help authors immensely.
If you enjoyed this interview, check out my other book reviews with Author Interviews on my blog:
Link | The Masks We Wear by BD Carpenter with Author Q&A
Link | Mage Breaker by Sean R. Frazier with Author Q&A
Link | Silverweaver by Cee M. Taylor with Author Q&A + Excerpt
Link | The Ghosts of Reeser Morrigan with Guest Post by author Amara Lynn
I've got a lot more interviews planned in the coming months. I love them so much. Until next time, friends.
Rosie
Link | Linktree for Rose
