nearly as good as her fae series
I love this author but I didn't love this book.
I can't quite put my finger on it, It's a full length book that could be standalone though it is a part of a series, this book itself is suitable for young adults as it contains no sex, gory scenes, or cussing, I liked the concept that a witch doesn't realize it doesn't want to accept that she has been practicing the wrong coven magic but it was a little predictable.
What I didn't like was that she has this big secret but then spends a bunch of time childishly being mad at the hero for keeping his own secret and being really rude and purposely cruel because of it.
Time was spent on trivial things and then suddenly when the important stuff happened it just breezed right through, I didn't care for the dialogue because it felt forced and now quite flowy this may have been because the characters weren't engaging enough and lacked depth.
It just didn't grab me like her other books, So needless to say, this book let me down BUT that may be because I actually started w this authors most recent fae books which are really good and I totally recommend! It's a fastpaced and fun read.
Good poolside or beach reading for the summer, Wolfhart's world features witches, vampires, and some very nasty demons, Zoe is a likeable heroine, and her interactions with the Bone Coven Enforcer Damien were entertaining,
I'll most likely pick up the sequel when it's released this July,
Why onlystars, you may be wondering There was one detail that I just couldn't push aside or suspend belief enough to accept the body in the morgue that starts the whole mess.
You mean to tell me that nobody examined/autopsied the damn body! I understand that the plot is driven by the murder and Zoe being perceived as the killer, but that really bothered me! I could, however, appreciate the irony that witches, who were often executed historically without the benefit of due process and a fair trial, would perpetuate that tactic with regards to their own judicial system.
That's it, though. I tore through the whole book in a single day, and my Kindle Paperwhite could barely keep up with my frantic pageflipping finger swipes.
Jenna Wolfhart, if that's your real surname that's incredibly badass by the way I'll be watching for you in the future! Wanted: Magically Armed and Dangerous.
Ever since my parents died in the demon war, Ive paid my way through life by using magic to con people.
Its not right, but a girls gotta do what she can to survive,
Unfortunately, my latest con has left me smack dab in the middle of a murder scene, Now, a coven of angry mages thinks Im the killer, In order to clear my name, I have to team up with an infuriatingly sexy warlock whose powers are far darker than he admits.
Throw in a string of related murders and a vexed vampire clan, and Im up to my eyeballs in danger.
But that's not even the worst of it, When I get too close to the real killer, he casts a lifethreatening curse on my grandmother, Before, I just wanted to save my own butt, but now Ill do whatever it takes to track him downeven if it means following him through monstrous dimensions.
Because I dont play nice with magic, And when you mess with Grandma, you becomeon my sht list, Was this YA Because it sure read like YA in the sense that it fed me bite sized, prechewed information and then told me how to feel about it.
The MC is, . . painfully annoying and highly inconsistent, The pace too slow, the love interest interchangeable and the best friend nothing more than a set piece to drop some exposition on the reader.
The plot keeps being interrupted to tell me something that makes me want to smack my forehead and shout 'no shit sherlock!'.
An example: she is crouched in front of a door, about to lock pick her way inside, Okay, fun! But then someone comes around the corner and, . . I shit you not, her thought process is 'I need to come up with an excuse oh no let me narrate some more' instead of, I don't know actually coming up with something.
It completely slows down the pace of the book and I continuously had the feeling I was being talked down to by the author who felt I was incapable to string two logical thoughts together on my own.
I don't know, it was boring tinged with an annoying MC and a love interest that wasn't much better.
The dialogue was stilted and often painful, There were some blatant grammatical errors and I listened to the audiobook, mainly when it came to congugating verbs,
The ideas were fun, the world, while generic, would have still served its purpose, the plot was wellstructured.
However, a devastatingly dumb and annoying MC pushed this entire series into the pile where I keep all the books that, would I only have those to choose from, would cause me to never read another book again.
Sorry but nope. Could hardly get through half of this book, Zoe the special snowflake is literally one of the worst main characters I've ever come across, She pissed me off to no end and I wanted to reach in and throttle her, Are we suppose to like her Because she's the dumbest hypocrite I've ever had the displeasure of reading about,
SPOILERS
She is a shadow witch or whatever and has to hide that fact from the bone coven and yet she basically flays into Dorian for being a hybrid You won't tell anyone you're a shadow witch but you want everyone to know Dorian is a half vampire Mhmm okay, fuck off you hypocrite.
She says she hates the council but has no qualms going to them to tattle on everything,
I also don't care for characters who run straight into danger and trouble when they aren't capable and told by experts to not go running into danger, exactly like the morons in horror movies who go down into the forest or basement to confront a strange "noise.
" The vampires were proven that they didn't have anything to do with the murders but she still judges Dorian and deems him untrustworthy just because he was born a hybrid He didn't choose to be a half warlock half vampire, just like you didn't choose to be a shadow witch, you asshole.
While the writing was good compared to some other UF books, I didn't like any of the characters, and couldn't connect with them or the story.
Zoe was just running around, getting her ass saved for most of the book and being mad at a dude for being something he has no control over, jumping to conclusions, and bitching at him for lying about who was when she's been doing that too Like do you not understand how dumb you sound I'm not a Dorian fan girl but I can't stand when main characters are assholes for no reason to the wrong person and I will always root for the underdog.
Dorian should just let her die since she thinks she can handle everything herself, DNF. What a waste of time, One star for the shit Dorian had to go through to convince Zoe he was trustworthy, DNF
This book was so unbelievably hard to read, I just can't get past how big of an idiot the main character is, There is no depth to any of the characters, none of them are relatable, I spent the majority of the time screaming at the main character in my head and the rest of the time just being bored.
There is no strength or depth to the protagonist, She spends half the book being mad at a guy for lying about who he is when that's all she's done the entire book.
I just couldn't finish this, Zoe is an idiot and Dorian needs to decide if he's going to brood or not, The worldbuilding has hints of not sucking, but Zoe being an idiot kept me from being able to tell, It's a light urban fantasy type of series that one would enjoy reading but I think that when I do finish this series, it won't leave a lasting impression and I'll forget all about it after awhile.
Everything seems just so cliche, I was looking forward to reading this book, only to end up disappointed, I shall chuck it into the same box as the Twilight Series,
Despite the odd swear word here and there it actually read very juvenile, in fact it would have been better to take out the swearing and remarket it for the early teens audience.
There wasn't nearly enough magic and not enough progression of the relationship between the two lead characters, It felt flat to be honest,
It had great promise, but never got off the ground for me, I only finished the book because I like things neat and tidy and tied up! I really enjoyed reading this book, and couldn't put it down.
The story isn't the classical one, and it doesn't start as if it was,
Zoe is far from perfect, but well, she didn't choose to con people by simple pleasure, She would have prefered her family to be complete, her grandma to be herself and she would have loved to be the average or not so average college student.
Life decided otherwise. Now she has to work at night, and to con people to put some food on the table, and a roof above her and her grandmother's heads.
So when she is accused of murder, she simply doesn't understand, Yes, she does what needs to be done, but she never harmed a human being, She still has some key values,
Hopefully, she's not totally alone in this, Dorian a sexy and mysterious warlock believes she didn't do it, and is willing to track the person who's really behind the murders.
With Zoe, they make a strange team, not really trusting each other, but having each other's back, Until some secrets are revealed, . . With treason lurking somewhere, it's difficult to know who you can rely on, . .
Will burried secrets kill Zoe's chance to prove her innocence Will their attraction be stronger than their differences And, in front of great danger and war perspective, will Zoe's weak bone powers reveal to be something else, something more, something important even
Acceptance and trust may be the key.
. . and if not, they might be Zoe's downfall, . .
A badass heroin, a sexy partner, a mysterious grandma, good friends and the start of an epic story.
. . What else could you ask for
The pace is great, and I loved that some secrets were left to discover at the end of the book.
Really, you should read this book, . . I can't wait for the sequel to come!
This book is a great new and fresh urban fantasy book.
We are spun up into a world with Demons, vampires, witches, warlocks, and plenty of action and magic,
I could not put this book down, The times that I had to put it down I couldn't stop thinking about the book, and the second I got a chance to start reading again I was so happy to be able to pick up the book again.
This book hardly took me any time to finish because I found it so amazing, There was not a single dull moment! This book was unpredictable and full of action, and kept my attention,
Zoe is an extremely stubborn character, but she is also a very strong character as well, and despite the fact that she may abuse her magic here and there to make money it turns out it is for a good cause, and she just doesn't realize how much good she can do instead of abusing her magic until the night she gets caught.
Although what she does to abuse her magic is minor she learns that the consequences are a lot larger than she expected.
That is okay though because she really does learn from her mistakes,
Zoe can't seem to stay out of trouble, but it isn't her fault she is being framed so she has to figure out just why someone would do this to her, with the help for Dorian she finds that there is a much deeper and darker secret to someone just wanting to get her in trouble.
Turns out they don't just want to get her in trouble, but they might just end up destroying the world if she doesn't figure out how to fix everything going wrong, but first Zoe must accept something about herself, because her grandmothers and other's lives depend on it.
I won't say too much more, because that is where the story comes together with some magic and non stop action
I voluntarily reviewed an advanced readers copy of this book.
Although I can see the appeal of this story line, I found the book to be boringly predictable, The characters had no dimension, The female protagonist fit right into the generally weak "but oh wait, now I'm strong as long as the man is OK with that" category.
The story was literally forgettable, as in I was to chapterbefore I realized I have already read this book.
So why give it evenBecause I'm a sucker for a witch story, and I'm hoping that in the successive books the author adds some depth to the characters.
I mean she left so many open holes in their personalities I'm hoping she used one of them to actually fill them.
The upside is I finished the book in a day so I will give the second book a chance, so I guess we will see.
DETAILS:
Witch's Curse is the first fulllength novel of The Bone Coven Chronicles of by Jenna Wolfhart, releasedst May.
This appears to be Jenna's first publication available for retail purchase, as per Goodreads, It's a decent size Urban Fantasy UF with tags like Witches/Witchcraft, Vampires, ands Demons, Since publication it's steadily picked up reviews at an approximate rate of one per day and afterratings by readers on Goodreads it has a value just shy of four.
I'm sure reasonable readers would consider this a very promising indication of the need to check it out for themself.
With the bolded blurb heading Wanted: Magically Armed and Dangerous, artistic UF styled cover art, reasonable pricing on both eBook and paperback releases, and an arousing book description, I can't see any reasons why UF fans wouldn't want to add it to their library.
Jenna's Amazon Author Page link follows: her doctoral in Librarianship and innate love of UF's kickarse heroines have shaped her dreams of writing stories of her own, the natural progression of her background.
Link sitelink amazon. com/JennaWolfhart
THE STORY/INTRODUCTION:
Devoid of her parents, twentyone year old Zoe Bennett's been using her magical gifts to do whatever has been necessary to raise the resources for her to get by.
This has mostly seen her following in the con artist footsteps left by her father, The demon war has whittled down the ranks of people with magical power until only several hundred are all that remain.
Zoe can be said to have a dry ascorbic sense of humour, especially if the situation sees a bit of magical manipulation and the lion's share of little white lies.
After all, a con artist's imagination and rational objectification are among the crucial skills needed to keep coming up with new and improved ways.
Practicing witchcraft to screw people out of their hard earned money isn't the life of the Zoe still living at home with both parents still taking care of her and grandma the alternate world that's only a pipe dream.
Ideally, had the boat not already sailed away five years ago, then she'd be currently finishing up her final college year in readiness for the well paid networked job.
But, as in the case of her latest mark, it's hard to feel any remorse when you're swindling pathologists selling hospital drugs to kids on the side.
The blood bag pimping out his neck to daywalkers for a quick but expensive thrill, that is if the vamps are responsible for the current spate of murders being made to look like demon feedings.
Zoe's twohundred dollar fake banishment of demons absent from the places she 'cleanses' are indicative of good acting, legitimate choreography, and artistic charades.
No real harm is permitted to occur, and taking money of the likes of the drug dealer she last swindled hardly constitutes anything resembling a murder scene.
Cold showers, empty plates, and overdue rent can motivate you to blur a few moral and legal lines in the sand.
That's even more so if the roof, warm water, and food are crucial to keeping your grandma in the most basic needs required by her aging body and crippled mind, another gift courtesy of the demon war.
And yet, places she's recently visited begin turning into murder scenes within moments of her arrival, or departure,
When coven enforcers offer her a chance to assist finding the real murderer, to both prevent being their only suspect and to attempt to keep it from the scrutiny of human law enforcement agencies, she reluctantly recognises the olive branch others might not extend.
She's thus forced to work with the sexy warlock, Dorian, who she'd met when metaphorically getting caught holding the bag.
It was him who negotiated her only chance of proving her innocence, shortly after admitting to a recent history of semistalker'ish behaviour: irrespective of whether he describes it as two months of 'monitoring' the cons she pulled in that time because it risked exposing the wrong sorts of people to the craft.
Dorian also bares the same mark as her, their tattooed rune denoting them as beholding to the Bone Coven a sore and sorry topic that riles her anger over things to personal to discuss with someone basically a stranger.
Mages witches and warlocks only earn the spontaneous tattoo when they cast a spell strong enough to designate them as worthy of addition to the ranks.
Now Zoe needs to use her skills, both the inherited and the learned, to first determine the killer's motives if they're to solve the sinister mystery behind the murders.
Unfortunately she's essentially a novice in craft knowledge about runes and spells, partly because of her family's missing grimoire, and by virtue of their deaths.
That she keeps getting distracted by an inexplicable and mounting attraction to tall, dark, chiseled, and deadly, isn't helping her resolve.
Zoe also detects a dark depth in his magical aura, one at odds with what she knows about him.
Her witchy instincts are shouting a reluctance to trust him, even though everything he seems to be doing has an effect aimed at helping her.
It therefore seems they're both keeping confidences back, or outright lying even if only by omission, When the killer suddenly curses her ailing grandma, seeking to force her into backing off and staying out of his plans, the gloves come off for bare knuckled charge into the thick of it.
No longer caring about playing nice, or worrying about the darkness that could creep into her magic if she stays the resulting path of her new game plan, the killer's actions provoke the absolute opposite of his intentions.
Zoe ends up galvanised by her needs to catch him, and to put an end to any risks and consequences aimed at family and including her best friend.
Regardless of the risks to her safety or any associations by dangerous supernatural denizens in the Boston general population, A particular group seem to want to pin increasing murders on her, making her pissed enough to follow wherever the breadcrumbs lead: and to do whatever is needed to takeout the new number ones on her shitlist.
To be the most effective she and Dorian can be, each may need to clear the air of lies between them.
As much as it's a hit to their prides, only together can they be strongest,
Fraudulent cons might've seen her walking in the footsteps of her father's less than illustrious life, but hunting down demons and magical crims is a walk in her mother's.
The former is a blemish Zoe took up after their deaths, The latter is something forced on her by getting tangled up in the mess created by the former, Before her mother was killed, she was a most successful enforcer, the first and only ever female enforcer the Bone Coven ever had.
It's poetical if nothing else, that Zoe's choices inevitably led her to doing the same things her parents were known for, even if only temporarily or if it's fame or infamy.
Her apple hasn't fallen far from the tree, and it's essentially up to her what tree she'll end up being known for.
OPINION:
A central theme in young Zoe's life holds poignant mechanisms in making our own lives better.
Sometimes the lies with the heftiest tolls, or equal biggest as which the case may be, are the ones we tell ourselves.
The truth of them also thus seems to be the most invigorating and freeing things to admit, The propensity of things we can and cannot accept to hold us back is often without comparison, These things regularly centre around the one umbrella, which hides the light from reaching our heads, so as to prevent the revelations that deal with our most ideal place in the world.
The abilities we ourselves have to hold us back are the strongest in this regard,
Don't look only at the ways the world works against you, it's much easier to change yourself than the world.
It is after all the only thing we have onehundred percent control over, This is never more true than in the case of things we have no control over in our worlds, but yet change can still occur by learning to alter or adapt your perception of such things.
In essence, something that angers you is provocative only as long as you perceive it in the ways that cause your anger: you can always choose to perceive it differently.
The power of seemingly insurmountable hills to climb can if you choose it, have only the power we give them.
Such things are the fundamental underpinnings of reasons why injustice is only ever a matter of perception, as too wrong and right or black and white.
Don't always let such phenomena work against you, adapt to them at times when they instead work for you.
First look at yourself: only after those changes are made does the world begin to matter most, Before freeing yourself, any and all efforts in changing the world's influence, are only ever bandaid treatments for wounds that need stitching.
That is, it takes a crapload more bandaids, and those you do apply quickly lose their effectiveness when their form's integrity become drenched in your blood still leaking from your wound.
Don't just replace the broken ones with new bandaids, go forth by stitching the wound, More's the better, metaphorical stitching need not involve anyone else and it's relatively painless,
Several dichotomies
exist in the themes of Witch's Curse, none more so than the aforementioned control of ourselves versus that of the environment.
Being led by your place in the world, or carving out a new one instead, The effect of the lies others tell you, versus the ones you tell yourself, Being victimised by the circumstances you have no external control over, or changing your victim status through the control over the internal factors you can.
The dichotomous factors in the essential bare bones of life are inherently linked to being led by a crappy fate or destiny, instead of carving out the ones you choose for yourself.
At the risk of sounding like eastern philosophers, dichotomies exist because of the yin and yang of our worlds, and reflect in our thoughts the ability to find balance by being the owner of your enlightenment.
Zoe also provides further analogies, making her a perfect construct to achieve certain storytelling goals, Another one shouting to be noticed is the good ol' being careful what you wish for: the, at least be very specific about how you word your wishes.
Take a wish to be taller than your brother hypothetically speaking, Then the following day you awaken to a call from your parents saying your brother's in hospital following a fresk car accident resulting in the loss of his legs Back to the story, Zoe wishes that her magic will be used for things more meaningful than pulling cons, to live a more meaningful life.
Now imagine the many ways these might come to pass, or how their ambiguity can be expanded upon, She'd desperately hoped for excitement sweeping in and off her feet, only to days later be pining for the old and boring.
Zoe's a girl from two walks of life, Growing up she had a legendary father, remembered for all the wrong reasons, He equipped her to follow his path of mastering the con, until he got caught that is, Then there was her legendary mother, remembered by those who were there, as a natural and remarkable enforcer who also happened to be the first and only female/witch to perform that job in the Bone Coven.
Shaped so much by infamous parents, she's either downtrodden by infamy, or hated and envied for fame, either way it's still a bunch of prejudice based on who her parents were.
Humans often seek to put as little effort into thinking as possible, needing to cut corners by forming stereotyped assumptions before ever giving people a chance to prove their mettle.
Riddled in meaningful contemplations as above, and in more than was listed, Jenna's book provides many important human traits in need of examination as it does entertaining action.
Content with themes we love to encounter in our UF, and the character and creature types, The level of detail and the use of broad and sweeping lore reflections are in depth, Mystery and suspense create that intriguing captivation where you have as much interest in solving the deductions you make, as wanting to be able to stop wringing your hands.
I've never read any other Jenna book or story, but as of now I'll be keeping an eye out for Bone Coven Chronicles books, and maybe others as opportunities provide.
Witch's Curse was a great read and I finished it quicker than expected, suggesting it keeps interest as a strength of the narrative.
Book two or even if a prequel, would be among your TBR's, .