Everybody loves a hero.
Everybody loves an antihero with a heart of gold.
Nobody loves a demon.
Nobody but Mal Sinclair, though she doesn’t know it.
Ben was just looking for a vacation from hell, found a path to redemption instead.
Piers Anthony (Xanth, Incarnations of Immortality, et al.) calls Always Darkest “A different story,” and “A solid fantasy novel”.