Curses, Foiled Again

By: Sera Trevor

Narrated by: Michael T Bradley

Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's Summary

Felix is a vampire - a fierce creature of the night who strikes terror into the hearts of everyone unlucky enough to become his prey. Or at least, that’s what he thought was true, until he met John. John is completely unimpressed with Felix, much to his dismay. Felix becomes fixated on proving his ferocity to John - and when that doesn’t work, he strives to make any impression on him at all. 

John is a witch, and as all witches know, vampires are notoriously stupid creatures who only have the power to hurt those who fear them. Besides, he’s under a curse much more frightening than any vampire. Felix’s desperate attempts to impress him annoy John at first, but gradually, they become sort of endearing. Because of his curse, John has pushed everyone in his life away. But Felix can’t be hurt, so there’s no harm in letting him hang around. 

Felix is technically dead. John has nothing left to live for. But together, they might have a shot at life. 

This dark and witty vampire romance for adults is complete at 100,000 words, with no cliffhanger. Despite some dark twists and turns, it ends with a solid HEA.

©2018 Sera Trevor (P)2019 NineStar Press, LLC

Loved this book...

I really enjoyed this book. I thought the narrator did a great job with the story line. It was a bit silly at times, but overall not bad.

Enjoyable, Creative take on a vampire romance

I really enjoyed this book. It offers a creative take on the vampire romance (at least as far as I know) and the characters end up with a different outcome than most, though they most certainly get their HEA. I loved the thought that the author put into the world building, and following each characters emotional arc. The performance was overall great, but I felt like he lost the secondary characters a bit sometimes. The two MC's, however, were performed excellently.

This was different

A witch with a deadly curse and a vampire that’s obsessed with getting his attention, any kind of attention.

One night Felix is on the prowl for his next meal and comes across John. What he didn’t know until that night was that in order to be able to feed, his victims needed to be afraid of him. And John wasn’t, not even a little bit. That’s the starting point of Felix obsession, stalking John and doing everything and anything to get his attention. Imagine an eager puppy, bouncing around, wagging its tail, yipping and yapping. That’s Felix for you. It’s cute in a puppy, not so much in a vampire that’s supposedly more than a century old. I don’t know if the author was going down the road of ridiculousness and parody at least where Felix was concerned, but that’s where we ended up. Because cute or funny it was not – at least not to me. And if all vampires were the brainless fools that Trevor meant for them to be, then how come his sister didn’t appear as foolish?

I liked the idea and world building of the book, it was interesting and had a lot of potential; the lonely witch just waiting for the inevitable end. Only to accidentally pick up a vampire stalker begging for a date when he couldn’t kill him. Add in a fierce apprentice he didn’t mean to pick up either and the groundwork was there. Sadly it didn’t live up to my expectations in the end.

I saw somewhere that this book was described as dark, and I don’t know that I’d go that far. Or maybe that’s because I wasn’t all that invested in the book and felt anything beyond a mere interest in what was going on. There are some dark-ish moments if you think of it carefully, but they didn’t feel that way while listening.

I enjoy listening to new narrators, as it seems like most books I listen to lately are narrated by the same handful of guys. It gets repetitive after a while, so a new voice is always a treat, even if the narration as such isn’t perfect. Michael T. Bradley fell into the trap of over doing the performance. I love when narrators perform the books, where every emotion is clear and you can see the characters before you and feel what they feel. Bradly did try for that but went a step too far, so the actions and feelings didn’t seem genuine anymore. It felt like when children play, a bit over the top. I will say however, that as annoying I found Felix, Bradley absolutely nailed his narration of him. He truly captured the eager puppy that Felix was described to be.

A copy of this book was generously provided by the author in exchange for an honest review for Love Bytes.

Enjoyable!

This is such an enjoyable story. I have never read or listen to anything by Sera Trevir and I glad I started. Felix and John's story is funny and I love how their relationship grows. Michael T Bradley did a great job in bring this story to life. This is such a great listen.

Quirky and hilarious

Felix is a vampire, in search of prey, when he spots a young man, who smells delicious! He jumps in front of him with his most terrifying look and is met with the most unimpressed human he ever met. John isn't scared, and completely indifferent to the night monster in front of him, and proceeds to ignore Felix, who is now utterly fascinated by this beautiful mysterious man. This was such a fun story! Felix was adorable and had the funniest lines, and his old fashioned style was charming and delightful and how he courted John kept me in stitches. John was a dark person, easy to sympathize with, with all the tragedies he lived through, and his interactions with Felix were always heartfelt. I very much loved this book, it was funny, sweet, super hot, incredibly sad at times, and quirky. The performance of the narrator drove me nuts, I loved parts of it, and then I would be annoyed in other parts. The narrator gave Felix an old movie villain affectation to his voice, which was very fitting to his personality and made his comedic trait pop during the funny parts, however, the voice didn't fit during descriptive narration. The book is told in third person, so when the chapters where Felix is walking or just doing stuff, the villainous whispery voice doesn't really correspond with the narrative, because Felix himself isn't narrating the story.
Also, Felix's twin sister sounded old and pedantic, like the old Dowager from Downton Abbey, not like a young woman's voice. I could also say how Lo and Felix sounded alike as well, which was confusing because Lo is Latina young woman. So the narrator struggled with women's voices. However, I did like how he interpreted Felix and John, and kept a nice, natural pace, and performed the sex scenes with passion. All in all, it was a delightful book, regardless.

Don’t be fooled

Some of the reviews here are not very kind to the reader. There are readers that are too dramatic, but this is not one of them. His style might work for you, it might not, but this story is worth the risk.

couldn't get past chapter 5

The narrator ruined this book. The story sounds funny, but my ears couldn't take it. The narrator was simply reading the book and he gave the main character this horrible voice that made him sound like Eeyore. Every word made him sound depressed. This is a book that would be better read.

BUY THIS BOOK IMMEDIATELY

It takes a lot for me to write a review rather than just give a quick star rating because my Audible library holds 950 finished books. Curses is a rare find that compelled me to write a short review. I stumbled upon Curses by accident. Sara was a new author for me, and while my main love is MM romance, I don’t necessarily enjoy supernatural stories. This book is a wonderfully smart mix of humor, heartbreak, love, and hope. I immediately purchased all of Sara’s books subsequent to listening to this awesome piece. Every one has an interesting premise and should be listened to ASAP. The narration for Curses was PARFAIT. ALL THE STARS!

Not what I thought

I actually thought this was going to be a light hearted rom/com type thing based on the summary. I didn’t read any reviews that got into the book only ones that said whether the narrator was good and that the book in general was good. I won’t go into detail either since if anyone like me looks at reviews I don’t want them to pass mine. I just want to let them know I enjoyed the book and really liked the characters but if you’re getting it for a light hearted read this isn’t it. Although Felix makes most of the book lighter just because of his character type.

exceptional

loves the narration, loved the story, highly recommend, hope for more great narration from Michael.

Easy listening

I was not sure what to expect from this story but I really enjoyed it. Great I writing, great narration.

wonderful

love it please please please give me more and the narator is perfect keep them coming

Fabulous fun! A slow witted vampire!! 😂 Brilliant

The vampire is hilarious. Completely bewildered. A original, wonderful twist on common sometimes hackneyed genre.

Amusing

The story is interesting and amusing but not as funny as you would expect from the title.