3.5 stars. The characters made this for me. (Even the rather hideous Richard.) Felix, much wiser than he was clever; John, broken but clinging to life despite himself; Lo, strong, fierce, and brave with her emotions; Cat, growing from darkness to light. And, naturally, Astray, one of the best named , fiercest kitties I've read! This was fun and interesting. If you like paranormal M/M, give this a go!

** I WAS GIVEN THIS BOOK FOR MY READING PLEASURE **
Copy received through Netgalley

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Curses, Foiled Again by Sera Trevor
★★★★★
275 Pages
POV: 3rd person, dual POV
Content Warning: blood play, violence, murder, attempted suicide, with common vampire and zombie themes and behaviours.


Well, I've been on a bit of a Sera Trevor binge lately and I. Regret. Nothing! The author is just that good, that brilliant, that clever and the books never disappoint me. This one is no different.

Right from the start, I loved Felix and John. John is that snarky, cup-half-empty kind of pessimist who just knows the world is a pile of crap and accepts that he can't do anything to change that. Felix is the naively innocent, optimist, with a desire to please and a childlike curiosity. Despite their natural resistance to each other – because witches and vampires aren't supposed to get along – they defy the odds and find companionship, friendship, and understanding with each other. More than that, they find their way to an impossible love that they were never searching for.

When it comes to the secondary characters, both Lo and Cat were brilliant, strong women and feisty to boot. Richard was a really great 'bad guy' who did despicable things and pushed everyone to react in ways that naturally progressed the plot without any awkward 'convenient' behaviours. Everything that spurred on the plot and the characters to move as it did were natural to the characters personalities and appropriate for the circumstances.

Overall, I loved the slow-burn chemistry, the annoyance turning into charm, and the slow growing relationships that formed between all the characters. The plot progression was well developed and over a logical period of time. I loved that it all felt natural, even within a world full of paranormal creatures. Though it covered some dark topics – an attempted suicide, murder, violence, curses and vampirism, as well as some soft-zombie themes of control – the story manages to remain predominantly hopeful, if not positive, and romantic. The connection between John and Felix, even when barely a tentative friendship, is what makes this book such a success.

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Favourite Quotes

“for the first time since resigning himself to this curse, he felt alive, shocked out of the dullness of what was left of his life.”

“I don't want to go back to it – to that endless night. I was in a cage, but I didn't notice the bars until you showed me.”

Funny and appealing. This would be a great graphic novel or TV series, but I would have liked more development in the relationsip between Felix and John. Pretty good, in general.

The book really needed a lot of editing. The writing was not well done. However, the charm of the characters kept me reading. It was a really cute story, and I feel that it could have been better with a strong editorial staff.

Trends or no trends, a good vampire novel is never out of style. This offbeat gem is less Interview with the Vampire and more What We Do in the Shadows, with that blend of the comic and the horrific that’s so hard to get right and so delicious when done well. Felix is a vampire living in LA whose preternatural strength and thirst for human blood are balanced out by his wistfulness, impulsive sincerity, and the inescapable fact that he’s dumb as a bag of hammers (a side effect of the vampire condition). Watching him occasionally try to be cunning is adorable: think a Goth Jason Mendoza from The Good Place. He becomes annoyingly fixated on a witch named John, who is living under a truly frightening, isolating curse, and in the way of all romance they slowly annoy one another more and more intimately. There are some truly horrific moments in the course of the plot — as well as actual consideration of the predatory nature of vampiric feeding, which is not the lightest of reading — so best keep this book for a moment when you’re in the mood to shiver a little. But if you’re a horror romance fan (I see you! I know it’s hard to find your catnip!) then you’re going to want to give this one a try.

Hilariously written and super cute! I really enjoy this vampire tale :)

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36516389-curses-foiled-again" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Curses, Foiled Again" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1509719213m/36516389.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36516389-curses-foiled-again">Curses, Foiled Again</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8418210.Sera_Trevor">Sera Trevor</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2297357615">3 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
Netgalley #14<br /><br />Many thanks go to Sera Trevors, NinePress, and Netgalley for the free copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased opinion.<br /><br />3.5 stars<br /><br />I really enjoyed this read. I felt like the longer the author wrote, the more emotionally vested she became in the storyline. It really flowed well. I only wish the denouement had been a bit longer in the making.<br /><br />Felix, the vampire character, seemed extremely immature to me. That rubbed me wrong a few times. He was like that puppy that's constantly hopping around tapping around your legs. In fact there is a point when Trevors writes, "If Felix had a tail, he'd be wagging it." <br />John's curse was a motivating catalyst. Having something one can't escape, but needing to for love is a great topic. And it is a sweet love story. The sex scenes weren't over the top. I appreciated that. <br /><br />Again it was a slow start for me, but I eventually became involved in the escapades of the vampires and the witches. Really any story that has those as characters is already interesting to me.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/6595648-bam-the-bibliomaniac">View all my reviews</a>

Felix and John, a couple that actually made me laugh. I loved reading about their interactions. John was the serious one, having a curse threaten his life everyday made him antisocial and reluctant to form any kind of relationship with other people. It was so funny seeing Felix’s efforts to make John go out with him. He and John had such a nice chemistry and I loved Felix’s goofy personality.

Okay wow, this took me a long time to read. The story isn't bad necessarily. In all fairness, the banter is incredibly witty. I definitely chuckled quite a few times reading this...., but the romance wasn't there for me. I felt no passion between the characters. Their relationship was more comical and convenient than loving .It just wasn't the story for me.

I enjoyed this so much! It is was a very entertaining story and a pleasure to read. The best aspect of this book was the characters.

I do think it must be difficult to write a paranormal story which is fresh, exciting and also engaging, because vampires, witches, werewolves and all the other paranormal creatures have been done to death. In this story we have witches and vampires coming together and it is a really engaging story which held my attention from start to finish.

Felix is a vampire. He lives with his sister Cat, who is also a vampire, and her husband Richard who is a very powerful witch. Life, such as it is, is good for Felix. He spends his time hunting and sleeping and not much else. That's all there is to it until one day he meets someone who isn't scared of him and whom he can't bite. John who is a witch, was just going home after his normal shift serving tables at a local restaurant when he bumped into a vampire. After getting rid of the pesky vampire John thinks nothing of it until he notices that the vampire is stalking him. This is more than John needs because he already has an age old curse on his life, one that has brought nothing but death, pain and loss to his life.

Unfortunately despite ducking and diving John can't get ride of the persistent pesky vampire. As John gets to know Felix the two of them develop an attraction for each other and when John confides in Felix and tells him all about the curse Felix decides in his own bumbling way to do something about it.

When the dark witch Richard comes up with a plan, John and Felix both realise that they are being forced into something that is dangerous and unacceptable but how can they stay ahead of Richard's dark plans when John's curse itself is growing darker. Together with the help of their friend Lo they decide to work together to end the curse and to stop Richard's dark plans but this is easier said than done.

This is a lovely romantic adventure with some really refreshing and well develop characters. The story is fascinating with both darkness and light mixing so well together and it is also laced with humor. There are parts of the story that are quite tense, others emotional, others funny and lighthearted. The romance is realistic and gradual, and then there are friendships and a coming together to defeat dark powers and unravel an age old curse.

It is a really good story and a lovely one to end my reading year with. I haven't read anything by this author before and she will definitely be someone I will watch for in 2018.

Copy provided by Nine Star Press via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

This was way cuter and funnier than I was expecting. It was really great watching Felix try to be ~scary~ and John was just having none of it. There was also some really interesting world-building with regard to the witches and vampires, definitely a new take on vampires with some 'rules' that I haven't seen before so that was nice. Cat and Lo were really great as well, even though they don't make it into the summary.

My main problems with this were that there were two 3-month time skips that - despite being necessary to the plot - still felt a bit clunky and also that there was the dreaded ~homophobe is actually a closeted gay man~ trope. I generally give that kind of thing a very grudging pass in older books but this is 2017 and it's a really toxic trope we need to move away from. Pretending that all homophobes are actually gay takes the responsibility for homophobia away from straight people, which is where it actually belongs. Other than that it was a really fun story though.

I think the reason I didn't enjoy this book as much as I'd hoped was more to do with my own expectations than with its own failings, which is a shame. It describes itself as 'dark and witty'; I think I was expecting more dark and less witty, but instead it was much more comedic than I was anticipating, and unfortunately not in a way I found especially funny. In particular, I found Felix's attempts to intimidate John less amusing than just immature and irritating, although granted, I think that's sort of how John felt as well.

It also suffered from being read immediately after I'd (re)read 'The Coldest Girl in Coldtown', which sets an extremely high bar for vampire stories. I was hoping this would hit some of the same spots, emotionally and narratively, but it was just a completely different kind of book, and while I wouldn't say it was lacking in emotional depth, it didn't affect me in anything like the same way. (I also think it's odd that 'The Coldest Girl in Coldtown', which contains no actual sex, managed to be significantly sexier than this book, which had a couple of explicit sex scenes. Sorry.)

It wasn't unenjoyable, though; it took me a while to get into, but once I'd readjusted my expectations, I did engage with some of the characters and their struggles. However, it wasn't what I was looking for, and it wasn't quite what the blurb had led me to believe it would be. Like I said, the problem was probably mostly my expectations, so it seems unfair to judge the book on that and to compare it with the only vampire novel I've ever truly adored, but *shrug* book reviews are always subjective, there's no getting around that.

(This review is on Goodreads, but probably won't be cross-posted to my blog as I prefer not to put many negative reviews up there, and also because it isn't especialy detailed.)

John is not at all impressed with the vampire, Felix, that has focused on him. Eventually, John can’t help but be won over by Felix’s determination.

This is going to be an interesting review. At times I absolutely loved this book. Then there were times I got bored and set my reader down in favor of watching prison shows on Netflix. At times it felt like I was reading three different books featuring the same characters in each book.

The beginning I found funny. There was a vampire who was trying so hard to be scary it was comical. When John gave in, he gave in fast. The tone shifted to more of a contemporary romance kind of vibe. I was down for it. I like my romance any way I can get it. But after reading a little more, BAM! tone shift to the dark, thriller aspect I had expected since the beginning of the book.

I understand the curse, the spell Richard preformed between John and Felix changed John but, I didn’t like how rushed those last chapters felt. I feel like I missed a few chapters. I didn’t. I checked.

BUT!

I don’t think I ever met characters like John, Felix, or Lo. They were unique and I loved them. Lo kicked ass and had a mine like my own. Felix I adored. He made me laugh, hide from second-hand embarrassment, and how sweet he became with John made my heart melt. John, I related to him and his predetermined fate with his curse. Sometimes, with a chronic illness, I think why bother? John did this A LOT and I could completely understand that. John found a reason why he should bother in Felix.

So I was on the fence with this one and will give the author another go if I see something by her but I’m not rushing out to the store.

I received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review. I love the character Felix. His interaction with John was comical, amusing and loving. This is a great read and I would recommend this book.

I'll be honest here: the beginning of this novel is very sloppy. It's dialogue heavy, and a vampire straight up stalking a man (revealed to be a witch) leads to them going on a date leads to them falling in love like...super fast. I'm really not into the "no doesn't REALLY mean no!" school of storytelling, especially in 2017.

Having said that, it's a quick read and combines interesting aspects of magic and old Hollywood charm. I thought the spells were pretty cheesy in their rhyming, but they didn't bother me that much. This was a fluffy distraction from the world, and that's something we do need in 2017.

This is a book about bad people and good people working together to fight an evil person. That’s simple but this author executes it so well. Felix is a vampire so he can’t help but be bad. His vampiric curse prevents him from caring about anything…until he meets John. John is a self-pitying witch that has a good heart but gets caught up in only thinking about himself. Felix falls for him right away but it takes a lot longer for John to start to care. But when he does, they make a cute paranormal couple.

Felix’s sister Cat and John’s friend Lo are excellent supporting characters because they both help to make Felix and John better men while being bad ass in their own right. I also loved the way spells work. I wish saying silly rhymes would grant all of my wishes. It also would be fun to curse something to suffer horribly with what is basically a rap song. I wish all I needed to curse someone was dope rap skills. Another awesome aspect of this book was all the references to old Hollywood. Fans of black and white movies will appreciate that.

My favorite thing about this book was the love story. It wasn’t hearts and flowers, although blue roses are significant. It was more like “Well you’re cool and keep wearing me down so I might as well fall in love with you too”. I found that this kind of romance made way more sense for the characters but was also humorous and light hearted which provided a nice counterweight to the book’s darker tones.

This book had so many great elements from the old Hollywood tie in and the setting for a good portion of the book that leaned into the otherworldly yet still glamorous aesthetic that is usually tied to the vampire genre.

I enjoyed seeing into the characters lives both with and away from the romance plot and seeing them deal with their individual problems and come into their own for the final act where they have to rely on each other and themselves in order to succeed.

My only criticism is unfortunately Felix. Through the first half he is too much of a caricature of the traditional, yet almost laughable vampire. I felt more that he was a parody than an actual character that exceeded the naïveté I’m assuming was the original intent for putting a vampire into the modern world and as a result I was more annoyed with him until the plot made him undergo a different kind of change and then I was sad a we couldn’t have had that Felix a bit longer.

**thank you again to netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**

I really enjoyed the fantastical elements of this book, but it may not be for everyone. There is some murder (not described in too much detail, and usually in self-defense), descriptions of blood, and blood drinking by vampires, and an unsuccessful suicide attempt.
This book had an interesting take on vampirism as a curse, and a curse with three possible variations. The rose on the cover was also an interesting addition to the folklore. The world building was pretty good for a romance novel, and I liked the way vampires, witches, fairies and the like are all worked into the world. While the focus was on the gay romance of the leads, there were also lesbian, and possible bi characters, as well as closeted characters to fill out the book.
The build up of the relationship between John and Felix was fun. I enjoyed Felix's puppy dog actions, and John's amusement at the vampire pursuing him. The dialogue is enjoyable, the characters are relatable, and the world feels fleshed out. I wish it was twice as long, or had a sequel, though the ending leaves little room for it. It was nice to see witches and vampires together without little drama, and witches who trust vampires over each other. Astray also is a heart stealer, and John's devotion to her will speak to any cat lover.
Great book!

The first chapter is such a total train wreck that I almost DNF’d this book, but there was also something compelling enough about it that I kept reading - and I’m so glad I did! Chapter one reads like a goth teen’s unedited NaNoWriMo novel, and then the rest of the book reads like it was written by an entirely different person. I love the evolution of several of the relationships (but won’t say more because spoilers) and was pleasantly surprised by the depth and growth of the main characters - definitely something I was NOT expecting from that first chapter! The name of John’s cat (Astray) was awkward for me (I kept reading it as “Ashtray” and thinking what an awful name that is for a cat). Also kind of bugged by how many characters in this book are gay. Which isn’t to say that I disliked the 80-90% gay cast, but each time another character was revealed to be gay/lesbian/bi I was like what are the odds? Also, I know a guy who is rather John-like and he can’t pick up chicks to save his life - is he playing to the wrong crowd? Because John seems to be man catnip for some reason.