Guest post written by A Match Made In Hell author Charlotte Ingham
Charlotte Ingham is a romance and fantasy writer from South Wales. When she’s not dreaming up her latest plot twist, she can be found attempting to befriend every animal she meets (past accomplishments include hugging an alligator). A Match Made in Hell is her debut book.
About A Match Made in Hell (out September 11 2025): A sinful treat and equal parts sexy and witty, A MATCH MADE IN HELL is a fun combination of romcom and fantasy, full of heat, heart and humour. It combines the fiery sexual tension of ICEBREAKER with the contemporary fantasy vibes of A DEMON’S GUIDE TO WOOING A WITCH.
One of the reasons I’ve always been drawn to fantasy as a genre is that it provides an escape from the real world and adds magic to the mundane. Creating an alternate version of the afterlife for A Match Made in Hell allowed me to build the ultimate escape; a place where anything is possible. If the underworld had to cater to an eternity of souls, there needed to be a variety of activities (and punishments) on offer to account for individual tastes.
That wasn’t the case when I started the first draft. Initially, I planned for it to be a hell filled with the fire and brimstone you’d expect, but after going down a rabbit hole trying to name a river (some might call this ‘spending a morning procrastinating writing the actual book’, but it paid off), I ended up looking into the different levels of the Greek underworld, and in particular Asphodel—an in-between place between Elysium (Heaven) and Tartarus (Hell) that’s the final destination for most ordinary souls. It was that concept that sparked a lot of the inspiration for the book, although the Asphodel in A Match Made in Hell is very different from its namesake. Firstly, it has the potential to be a lot more fun. Secondly, it’s all going horribly, horribly wrong.
Willow’s journey begins with all the elements she envisaged of Hell—a boat crewed by a skeletal oarsman, some fiery lava and a devil lounging on a throne covered in skulls—but as she progresses deeper into Asphodel she learns it didn’t always be this way. It used to be a real middle ground, with aspects of good and bad, but has become corrupted over time by its more hellish elements. Even so, there are still pockets of joy to be found.
Set in a magical skyscraper with no top or bottom, every floor has something different to offer, from a never-ending party inside a volcano to an art gallery exhibiting the works of Asphodel’s inhabitants. It’s the possibility for good moments, and wanting to protect them, that prompts Willow into making a stand against the demons threatening to destroy everything.
When the world is dark and scary place, fantasy settings allows us to see characters fighting for a better future—and more importantly, winning that future. If those in Asphodel can overcome the temptations and seeping corruption from literal hell, then maybe there’s hope in the real world too.
The other boon of fantasy is that it allows to address these situations in all manner of ways. Sometimes you want to escape the gloom entirely, and just have fun. It’s easier to forget reality for a few hours when you’re swept away by a magical location, watching two people fall in love while overcoming life-or-death (or life-and-afterlife, as the case may be) situations. With its light-hearted moments, A Match Made in Hell showcases an underworld that can be ridiculous, and silly, and put a smile on people’s faces, and sometimes that’s the kind of hell you need. One that’s a little less scary.
Asphodel might be an escape from real life, but, in the end, it might be an escape you never want to leave behind.
