Review copy was received from Publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Startup Hell by Caitlin Rozakis Narrator: Megan Tusing
Published by Tantor Audio on May 19, 2026
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Length: 12 hours, 40 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Publisher
Goodreads
Amazon, Audible, Libro.fm, Barnes & Noble, Apple
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. 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 is another story.
Surprisingly the job description for a demon and a junior employee at a start up firm have a lot in common. They both try to make cold calls and talk people out of something they might not want give up for the promise of something better. They both have demanding bosses and quotas to meet. And they both tend to consume your life and make it really hard to find romance.
Startup Hell was pretty funny and I had a good time throughout the entire story. Morgan feels like a disappointment to her parents. They are huge in the magical community, her mother literally kicks butt for a living. Morgan however has no magical talent but trouble found her the night she walked into her bosses office only to find him dead and a demon stuck in this dimension with no soul to take back. Lucareoth probably isn’t the best at being a demon. He likes getting the meeting with a new client/victim but hates the part where he needs to close the deal. Still only complete rookies end up stuck on this side, he needs to get back before someone notices. In their hurry to help one another out everything goes wrong and Morgan too falls in debt to the dark side and needs to deliver a soul or she will be trapped in hell too.
The concept for Startup Hell was really fun to play around with. I thought some of it got a bit beyond silly as the company Morgan worked for literally tried to morph into whatever they thought the next big thing would be. I loved how Morgan was so naive and just wanted to be a part of something really ground breaking only to find out that her boss was pretty much a frat boy fraud. Some people might deserve to go to hell.
Overall I liked the growth Morgan went through and how she kind figured out who she was or wanted to be by the end of the book. Lucareoth, was nice and sweet and definitely too good to go back to hell. I loved his magic allowed him to sense what others want and why he was drawn to Morgan’s mind. Who knew that the demon of the story might just end up being a hero.
Narration:
Performance: ★★★★
Character Separation: ★★★★
Diction: ★★★★
Pacing/Flow: ★★★★
Sound Effects: none
Megan Tusing is a confident narrator and should be with over two-hundred titles to her name. I think she captured the fun of the story.  All of the voices in the book were distinct, Lucareoth’s narration added to his likability and helped to make him relatable. I was able to listen at my usual 1.5x speed.
Listen to a clip: HERE
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I liked the silliness 😀 And I srsly had NO idea where it was headed
Right!!! It was all over the place for a little while.
I like the sounds of this!!! 😀
This sounds like one I might enjoy. Audio sounds like the way to go as well. Great review!