C-
Genre: Paranormal, Romance
I don’t want to write this review because I absolutely adored Danan’s first two novels. They were fresh and original and lovely. This novel is…well, it’s okay. That’s it. That’s the highest praise I can give it: okay.
Riley Rhodes is a cursebreaker. It’s a family thing that her grandma started (but initially the impression is given that it’s much older than that). Her mom didn’t take up the mantle and now, in her 30s, Riley is picking it up. She’s trying to make a go of it financially when she’s hired to break a curse at Arden castle in Scotland.
What’s the curse? Oddly, the nature of the curse is not ever actually explained until the very end when the ‘solution’ to the curse is discovered. Incidentally, the ‘solution’ to the curse will be clear to the reader by the midpoint of the book, but the alleged cursebreaker will only see it in the final pages.
Clark Edgeware is the archeologist on site. Before they know who the other is, they flirt at the local pub. The next morning brings a tornado of conflict as Clark works out who she is and wants to get her fired. He’s recovering from a professional setback and doesn’t want his redemption project to become a laughingstock, so she’s gotta go so that his site remains a pristine academic setting. However, this conflict is only explained in bits and pieces and for the first part of the book I was genuinely confused as to why he would even care that she was there except as someone to flirt with. Anyway, fireworks ensue. It becomes classic enemies-to-lovers stuff.
But I couldn’t lose myself in the story for two reasons.
1. It is difficult to buy that Clark’s work is undermined by a cursebreaker. Corporations (it’s a corporate group doing the land developing) do all kinds of things as marketing stunts. Why does hiring a cursebreaker mean that he’ll be laughed at? I don’t get it. He wants things to remain ‘academic’, but he’s finding absolutely no artifacts of interest so it’s not like this can be his big redemption tour anyway. He’s scratching in the dirt aimlessly, achieving nothing. Also, if he is cross for her being hired, then he needs to take that up with the corporation, not with her. The whole thing is very flimsy.
2. The book-world is very much our contemporary world – a world in which paranormal things are by no means widely accepted. Clark is a confirmed skeptic and the narration doesn’t give any clues that the curse or cursebreaking are legitimate, real things that happen in book-world.
It took a tremendous amount of suspended disbelief for me as the reader to buy into the idea that a) curses are real in this book-world and b) they can be broken by cursebreakers. There wasn’t a lot of supporting evidence for me to follow.
But by the end of the book, I am supposed to believe that one artifact and some wind can convince both Clark and the reader that curses are real? For me, the book-world leans too much to contemporary and needs to lean further into the world of paranormal romance.
Side note: I definitely couldn’t buy into them breaking the curse with sex magic of all things.
The book didn’t flow for me. Yes, the sex is hot, but there were too many things that pulled me out of the story. Too many little things that were so convenient for pushing the plot forward, but didn’t contribute to the plot and book-world having internal integrity. Another example: the site needs a supervisor but then just before they’re about to ~do mysterious curse-breaking things~ in the castle, the supervisor is off for a few weeks? It’s too convenient.
I still read the whole thing and I will definitely be reading Danan’s fourth book whatever that might be about. But this one was a miss for me and I wish it wasn’t.
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Oh dear. Enemies to lovers isn’t my favorite trope anyway, but I just can’t with romance MCs who are bad at their jobs.
Rats! This sounded so promising! I do still really tend to enjoy enemies to lovers, but admit that mainly it’s because I love when the main characters are really good at what they do and just haven’t had the chance to witness the other in action yet. This doesn’t sound like that… :/
I went way higher with this one at an A-! Liked it. I think Clark’s attitude is justified by his reaction to his father’s behavior IMO.
I misread this sentence
The next morning brings a tornado of conflict as Clark works out who she is and wants to get her fired
as a “tomato of conflict”
… please let this week be over soon.
Boo. Thanks for the review, Lara!
@Ely, I propose we adopt “tomato of conflict” as a phrase denoting situations in books where nothing is actually wrong but everyone’s yelling anyway.
Welp, thank you for this. I’m going to read it because I really liked the author’s other work. Hopefully this is a situation where reader tastes differ, though the plot is not normally one that draws me.
Like you, I’m willing to give a favorite author a pass because I know what they’re capable of writing.
@OuchOuchOuch, I love it!
I’m a bit confused by the text in the spoiler box. To be precise, the part right after “I am supposed to believe that”. Could somebody who’s read the book provide more context? (In spoiler tags, natch?) Thank you in advance!
@mikey Of course!
What I meant there was…
Hope that helps!
Gah! I really thought I used spoiler tags there and I can’t figure out how to edit/delete my comment. Very sincere apologies, folks!
No, see, I got that part (but thank you anyway!) but I don’t understand why those things would make him feel that way. I feel that there are some details about the specific situation that I’m missing.