Review of Heavenly Pleasure by V. Mark Covington

I recently read Heavenly Pleasure by fellow Solstice author V. Mark Covington. HP was not published by Solstice, rather by Aspen Mountain Press. Mark's next book,  is being published by Solstice.

Like I said before, I like books with twists. This book had twists and turns. It was funny, irreverent and sweet all at the same time. Heavenly Pleasure is available at Amazon.com.

he sky was sky-blue-pink this morning as I drove into work. I never really thought about it before I read V. Mark Covington’s irreverent novel Heavenly Pleasure, but he was right. The sky really can be sky-blue-pink.

Heavenly Pleasure by V. Mark Covington, published by Aspen Mountain Press, takes you to Perilous Parkwood where God and the Devil have decided to play out the battle for the world’s soul. Parkwood’s kooky inhabitants include a vampire stripper, an angel masquerading as a dancer, an honest to goodness mad scientist and John, a writer who’s been tapped to write the next gospel. The problem is John doesn’t know it yet. If these are the forces of good, what could the forces of evil have lined up? Well, the leader of the devil’s armies is the Reverend Roberts, a fire and brimstone preacher who’s a whole heck of a lot closer to the fire than he knows; and Clay our unwitting anti-christ.

I really enjoyed this book. I truly came to care about the goofy characters. They had such unique personalities that I was a little sad to see it all come to an end. I won’t give anything specific away, but it is a battle between good and evil and not everyone walks away from that final fight.

There were some hilarious images and a cheeky good humor threaded through the book. I have to admit, one of my favorite characters was The Ice Cream Man. I’ll leave it up to the reader to decide who he really is! Covington told a story that could have been bogged down by all the philosophy and metaphysics, but he didn’t. Heavenly Pleasures, for all its religious trappings, is a wonderfully entertaining story about people. The characters are at the heart of the story, the heart of the conflict and at the heart of the battle for the world’s 

soul.

Add this wonderful storytelling to Covington’s beautiful writing and this book just soars. I’m a word junkie and I have to admit I loved some of the descriptions.

I really enjoyed Heavenly Pleasure and I’m looking forward to reading more of Covington’s work. Pick it up. Take a stroll in Carytown. Wave to Shabuti the deaf vampire slayer and browse the shelves at Pandora’s Box. You’ll be glad you stopped in for a visit. And the ice cream? I hear it’s to die for!