Startup Hell
A hilarious contemporary fantasy about a junior sales witch stuck in corporate hell, who has to evade devilish pacts and her kickass, world-saving, demon-slaying mum to save a (surprisingly hot) demon, and work out how to hit her quarterly target.
Morgan Blackwater's mother is a kickass, world-saving, demon-slaying Shadow Council wizard. As for Morgan? Morgan's a junior salesperson at a tech startup that can't even decide what its product is. But with magic dyslexia and a disinclination to kick ass, Morgan is doing her best carving out a niche for herself in the mundane world.
Leaving work late one night, she discovers her boss dead from the effort of summoning a demon to trade his soul in order to make his quarterly target. The disturbingly-attractive demon, Lucareoth (Luke for short), is trapped here until he finds someone to sell their soul. While trying to sneak Luke out of the building, Morgan runs into her infamous mother. Apparently, someone has been summoning demons and she's here to get to the bottom of it.
Trying to protect Luke from her mother, Morgan gets sucked into the Infernal Plane and discovers hell really is a corporate nightmare. She only gets back home with a promise to deliver a human soul of her own. While her coworkers are really annoying, she's not willing to sacrifice their souls. The company's tech bro CEO, though, is another story.
With Caitlin Rozakis's signature wit, STARTUP HELL is a contemporary fantasy that exposes the demonic nature of the corporate world.
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Community Reviews
Startup Hell turns quarterly sales quotas into literal damnation. This is a contemporary fantasy about Morgan Blackwater-McKey, a junior salesperson at Zabloom, a Manhattan startup with an uncertain product, made up expectations, and executives willing to sacrifice nearly anything for better numbers. Morgan finds her boss dead after his attempt to trade his soul for a quarterly target leaves a demon trapped inside the office. Her effort to help the surprisingly charming Lucareoth escape drags her into an Infernal Plane where Hell operates like another toxic corporation.
The satire captures startup culture with accuracy. Arbitrary quotas, looming layoffs, predatory leadership, rampent misogyny, and relentless pressure shape Morgan’s workplace. Then, literal demons enter the building. The story exposes how greed allows companies to treat employees as disposable resources while executives protect their own power. The supernatural elements exaggerate these problems, but the anxiety underneath them felt painfully familiar to me.
My familiarity made the book difficult to enjoy. My own experiences in toxic startup environments brought back memories of dreadful coworkers, manipulative owners, invented performance standards, and the constant fear of losing a job. The corporate humor felt less like escapism and more like attending another exhausting sales meeting.
The story also felt unnecessarily long. Morgan and Luke’s search for a soul-contract loophole offers plenty of opportunities for clever commentary, but the plot begins to circle the same ideas. My interest faded as the corporate absurdity continued without enough happening. I repeatedly wondered what the story was building toward.
Megan Tusing delivered an impressive audiobook performance. I was surprised to learn that the entire production used a single narrator. Her character voices feel unique enough to suggest a much larger cast. She handles the comedy, fantasy terminology, and workplace tension with confidence.
Startup Hell succeeds as a pointed depiction of corporate greed and startup dysfunction. Its strong satire was also the reason I struggled to enjoy it. Pick this up if you enjoy workplace humor, bureaucratic fantasy, and demonic corporate politics.
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