Cursed to Death

Author: L.A. Banks

Genre: Paranormal/Urban Fantasy

Setting: New Orleans, LA

Types of Werewolves: Normal wolves, bipedal wolf monsters, "Shadow Wolves"

How Lycanthropy is Caused: Genetics, Infection from a bite

Synopsis: Sasha and Hunter are still in New Orleans after their battle with the rival werewolves and the vampire cartel. Now they owe the Fae a favor since they stood by them in court. When two Phoenixes end up murdered, Sir Rodney, the leader of the Fae, sends Sasha and Hunter to investigate. What they discover is a dark curse that causes the Fae to lose their glamour and become visible to average humans. Things go downhill from there after the same curse causes Hunter the Shadow Wolf and Shogun the werewolf to become irrational and territorial over Sasha. As usual, the vampires are the main suspects.

Review: Disappointed in this one. It was mostly about the Fae characters and not the werewolves. Plus, Sasha gets sexually assaulted and nearly sexually assaulted multiple times throughout the book. And most of the characters don't seem to care much about their behavior, even after the dark curse that causes them to act that way is lifted. Because of this, I was left unsure about whether I wanted to continue reading the series or not. It just seemed like such a cop-out excuse to me. And the whole story arc with Hunter and Shogun competing with each other has gotten old, to say the least. There were a few good parts, such as when Sasha and Hunter enter the shadow realm to fight the ethereal demon wolf forms of themselves, but most of it was rather uninteresting.

It's not a complete disaster, but it could have been MUCH better. So, unless you're a hardcore L.A. Banks fan, I'd skip this one. I'll probably read the next in the series and hope that it's an improvement and that the werewolves are a more prominent feature. Also, I'm interested to see the president's response to learning about the supernatural in the next installment. I would also like to see the story arc about the disembodied were-snow leopard fleshed out (no pun intended). But if the next "Crimson Moon" novel is as disappointing as this one, I'll be cutting the series from my reading list.

-Reviewed by: PenningtonBeast

For more info: http://crimsonmoonnovels.com