The Cursed

Coven of Bones, Book 2

By: Harper L. Woods

Narrated by: Ellis Evans, Emilia Bauer

Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

Betrayal.

He was the deception waiting in the night; the truth I never saw coming. After a lifetime of manipulation, I finally learned the truth. I was his puppet—even if I never saw my strings.

Even knowing how deep his betrayal runs, I can’t shake the undeniable connection between Gray and I—the way a single glance from him sets my soul on fire. We are not the same. We’re enemies, poised to battle for the future of the very thing I’d wanted to destroy.

With the Covenant gone, the revenge I thought I wanted is no longer my priority. The witches that remain played no role in my aunt’s death, and the only person standing in the way of righting those wrongs is the very man determined to keep me in his bed.

But the remaining members of the Coven will never forgive me for the role I played in their demise and subjugation, and the worst part of all is that I can’t even blame them for it. I’d been naïve, believing my own delusions of grandeur when destiny clearly had other plans for me—plans that had been set in motion centuries before my birth.

But even that had been a lie, and now it is my duty to do everything in my power to undo it, to protect my Coven from my husband’s hatred—no matter the cost.

©2023 Harper L. Woods (P)2023 Dreamscape Media

Love this series

Honestly enjoyed this so much! Gray and willows story is so fascinating I can’t wait to see this series expand!! Another hit for Harper/adelaide!!!

Enjoyed thoroughly🖤🌹

Unlike other reviewers, I didn’t walk into this with unreasonable expectations for a spicy fiction fantasy novel.
I found the character development of the main characters to contain their own tantalizing tensions, as well as the little that was given of the supporting cast.
It is clear the author has plans for these characters, and that we can look forward to a glimpse into their version of hell, and a daring rescue is on the horizon that will offer an opportunity to develop the supporting characters more fully with the probably new adventure.
The glimpse at the end of this novel gave just enough enticing details to have me looking forward to that whenever the author makes that announcement.
Magic courses through the book in satisfying helpings, and I appreciate the authors attention to a lead female character who is self possessed, as much as a witch bound to the devil himself can be.
And the Devil himself is as much a feminist as the devil can be, which I appreciated. His gestures are sweet and sincere.
I love the storyline of the tension between heaven and hell, the devil and god, and the goddess.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, if having to struggle through some of the triggers that are apparent and predisclosed at the beginning of the book, and look forward to where a hopeful future book goes.

it could have been better!

i feel like it was missing something to the story. also i dont feel like willow learned and actually faced the consequences to her own actions which would be part of character development like we see with grey. overall it was ok , i will give it another try next year and i will keep it cause I enjoyed the first book so much but i feel like it was a dull end to willow and grey story. 😢 the narrators were amazing and spice was good !

PRIMAL HEAT

This book brought some heat and did it well. It is easy to get very bored with cookie cutter sex screens. It is equally as bad when the sexual content is bizarrely out of place. This book provides the appropriate mental foreplay with zero awkwardness. As in it provides appropriate characters and settings and then turned the heat up to high with a cohesive flow that nailed it. The story is really good and carries over from book 1 (The Coven) seamlessly. The author fully embraces the nontraditional anti-hero leads. The underlying theme, without giving any spoilers, is to remember the quote "History is written by the victors."
Performance was great even with shifting between two narrator's which I normally am not a fan of. Both narrator's one female and one male did an excellent job. This helped immensely with the sexual content. No weird pauses or pitch changes that distract from the sceen.

It's ok..

The story was mediocre but it was the narrator's attempt at the male voices that I hated. It almost ruined it for me but I powered through just to finish it.

The story is perfection. The narrator on the other hand..

I love this series, it’s written beautifully and the character development is awesome. I love all the twists and turns, just as amazing as the first book. The female narrator was a mood killer though. Her voice for the MMC is horrendous, making him completely monotone and empty of emotion. It was bearable in the first book because he was supposed to be portrayed as heartless. But in this book you get to see the passionate side of him, and THAT is not what you get from her impression of his voice. The male narrator was the saving grace for him and this book. I loved the book, but will definitely buy the third on kindle instead. 5 star story though!

ugh my heart!

Grey and Willow can not catch a break, their back and forth of love and loathe flows so easily on page you can't help but root for them! Grey stole my heart the moment he called her his witchling. The ups and down of this book kept the pages turning all day. Now I sit and wait impatiently for the next book.

great series

loved having the two narrators, the males voice is very sexy, keep him!!
the storyline was very good and kept my interest. l will watch for more like this!

4.5 CURSED ★’s

The way this series owns me… Was it perfect? I don’t care! I knew what I was coming for. The Cursed delivered all the vibes.

┍━━━━━━━ ❝ ━━━━━━━┑
He'd given me his weakness.
I would make him live to regret it.
┕━━━━━━━ ❞ ━━━━━━━┙

Willow is still the fierce and feisty witch I remember and love. She and Gray make verbal sparring foreplay. I mean—that line between love and hate is VERY grey. 🤭 GRAY! That man is book boyfriend gold. He falls hard. And we love a man that would set the world on fire.

┍━━━━━━━ ❝ ━━━━━━━┑
“There is no end for you and I, Witchling.”

“I'll watch the world burn before I allow it to force you into something you do not want."
┕━━━━━━━ ❞ ━━━━━━━┙


PLOT: ❤️❤️❤️❤️/5
CHARACTERS: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️/5
SPICE: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️.5/5 (🥵🫠😮‍💨😅😋🤌)
SPICE FREQUENCY: 🔋🔋🔋🪫🪫


🎙️ The audiobook is fantastic! Evans and Bauer did their thang. It does sound loads better if you increase the narration pace.
🎧 Recommended Listening Speed: 1.7-2

⚠️ Please heed trigger warnings, friends! Happy reading! 🫂

Huh?

If you're someone who just wants some fast and easy fantasy-essenced smut, then this will do.
This doesn't shine a light to Harper L Woods other series.
There has been an attempt at world building and relationship building.
I think some more relationship building was needed in the first book. Story lacks tension.
This feels like a fanfiction writer did a fairly good job at imitating the author.