But You Can Call Me Cookie: 5 Great SFF Books with The Devil

Aliens, and donuts, and Satan, oh my! Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the Devil: she must convince seven violin prodigies to pledge their souls to Satan. It’s actually not as hard as it sounds. She has already done it six times and is now looking for the last one. Shizuka thinks she has found her last candidate in Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, but then something changes—Shizuka catches feelings for the owner of the local donut shop. Lan Tran is kind and wonderful, and also an alien ship captain hiding out as a small business owner. But with love and donuts possibly in her future, can Shizuka ignore her feelings and make good on the deal?

This is the start of an award-winning historical speculative trilogy! On her sixteenth birthday, Isobel decides to gift herself a deal with the Devil. Satan has been running things in the wilds of Mississippi, and could use a little human help in keeping an eye on things. So Isobel is gifted with power and intuition (but not a dental plan or 401K) and travels the territory manipulating people by exploiting their desires. But with great power comes great responsibility. And if Isobel has regrets about her job, she can’t complain to the boss.

Even Hell has a library: This is another great beginning to a fantasy trilogy! Claire is the Head Librarian of the Unwritten Wing, a neutral space in Hell where all the unfinished books reside. Claire does repairs and cleaning, makes sure that no books or their characters escape. But when a protagonist goes missing from a novel, Claire must go after him. She is joined by her assistant and a demon courier, who learn they must not only find the Hero, but also the Devil’s Bible, which holds the fates of Heaven, Hell, and Earth. No pressure.

What would you do for those you love? The unnamed magical detective in this wonderful novella would do anything, which is how she ended up selling her soul to the Devil to save her brother’s life. (Always with the souls. Doesn’t the Devil ever want anything else, like a nice M.L.T., a mutton, lettuce, and tomato sandwich when the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe?) Now, with her fate in Satan’s hands, the detective is living on borrowed time, and she’s okay with that, until she falls in love. So she wants to renegotiate the terms of her contract, and the Devil agrees to make her a deal involving a case: find the Chicago serial killer, the White City Vampire, in three days, and she can stay and live a happy life of love. Fail, and it’s pitchforks and hellfire forever.

Last but not least is the start of a kick-ass series about a group of badass librarians who use their knowledge to help fight evil. Nina and her team are battling evil in a weary America when they encounter a rogue group of supersoldiers who went AWOL in protest of their orders to kill. Together, the groups may be able to stop the destruction of the world…or they may speed up the process. (For more badass librarian demon-fighting, check out The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society by C. M. Waggoner.)