Allie and her friends are the perfect example of trust-fund babies: anything can be bought for a price, friendships are only skin deep, and responsibility is an utterly alien concept. Too bad for Allie when the school of hard knocks throws her into waitressing at a little diner in a Brooklyn neighborhood - or is it? Opening a Door to Hell might seem like a really bad step in the wrong direction, but fast forward a few years, and the positives seem likely to outweigh the could-have-been alternate future. After all, when a drop-dead sexy guy strolls into a room, saves your life, calls you a moron, and sets up a makeshift home within your own to guard your Door—what else could be better?

When sexy, Stetson-wearing Ryan strolls into the basement at that monumental moment in time as the Door to Hell opens, Allie has a terrible time deciding which is the bigger distraction - Ryan or the Magical Door? Unaware of the stupidity of her actions, Allie has brought forth a portal to Hell through which all sorts of evil attempts to gain entry to the mortal realm. The death and destruction these creatures can bring extends beyond the lives of a few humans; all of humanity faces total annihilation if the balance between Hell and the mortal realm is ever thrown too much in either's favor.

When Ryan and Allie discover the disappearance of her Door, a chain of events is set in motion that cannot be altered through any actions here in the mortal realm. With little to defend themselves, a group of Guardians and Allie must traverse the worlds of Hell in pursuit of some unknown aid to right the cataclysmic problems multiplying in their world. Failure is not an option, but the likelihood of success is virtually nonexistent as well. The pieces can and will fall into place, but unless some great magical force aids the good guys, the mortal realm may be be snuffed out like a candle.

Anna Katherine has a great website dedicated to Salt and Silver and some of the inspirations for the magic, doors, and worlds in her book. This is a first novel for Anna Katherine, a pseudonym for two authors long and well established in the publishing industry. Their personal backgrounds allow for a successful joint effort with little need for research. Similar to works by experienced pseudonym-sharing authors like Sydney Croft, the different writing styles and techniques are beautifully crafted and camouflaged to make the obvious double-author approach less noticeable and choppy for the reader.

Anna Katherine succeeds in making a great heroine to lead this novel from run-of-the-mill to spectacular. Readers, be prepared to burst spontaneously into laughter throughout -  this heroine takes sarcasm and dry humor to new levels.