Curses, Foiled Again

By: Sera Trevor

Narrated by: Michael T Bradley

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

An Interesting Book

An interesting book the writing was good. The plot was entertaining and it was steady throughout the book. I found the story and characters likeable. I think that some detail would’ve helped in a few places to fill out some events. And making a few events more understandable as to why they are important to the story. But overall, I enjoyed listening to the book. And I really like Felix his character was great. The characters were developed and thought out. Felix a vampire and John a witch are the MC’s of this book. Although the narrators voice isn't my taste but he did a good job with the narration. I can recommend this book as a good read/listen. I voluntarily read an advance copy of this book for an honest review.

Fascinating

I love this story and have read it twice so I decided to try the audio and was impressed. In the beginning, it was a little frustrating because the voices weren't "my" voices but I got much more comfortable after a bit. Audio is new to me so it took a little getting used to. Michael T. Bradley did a great job with the narration and the quirky character of Felix.

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.

Funny and magical

Felix and John's adventures together felt like the Odd Couple and I loved every minute of it.

Felix is a vampire on the prowl when he sees John walking home from work late one night. As he jumps out to scare him, John rolls his eyes and keeps going. Inexplicably, Felix is unable to bite him and it drives him crazy. It just so happens that John is a witch.

Unable to stop from thinking about John, Felix stalks him, investigates him, follows him, then finally shows up at his work. At this point, it's no longer just intrigue that keeps him interested, but John himself.

When John realizes he can't get Felix to leave him alone, he tells him that if he puts a drop of blood on a rose every day for 101 days, it will turn blue with magic and he can bring the rose to John and he'll see him. John knows that a vampire wouldn't be able to hold their interest long enough. But Felix isn't just any vampire. At this point, John can't stay away. But their lives start to get messy and entangled and they'll need vampires, blood and magic to fix it all.

There is a ton more to this story involving twins and curses and sharing hearts and cats and murders and movies and old film stars. And every single one of those things is central to the story. And what a story it was. I seriously loved it.

It's possible I loved the narration by Michael T. Bradley the most because his portrayal of John was just so innocent and sweet and even tempered, yet so very melancholy, which fit him perfectly. Felix's voice was magical. He was deep and dark and sometimes whiny, which just added a level of dimension for me, making this mysterious and fun.

I loved how much comedy was involved in this story. Felix wasn't the studious, formal vampire that is commonplace in the paranormal world. He was a little off, a lot sweet, very silly and oh so loving.

The characters were marvelous, each bringing so much to the story individually, then all blending at the end to create a stellar ensemble for the HEA.

I thoroughly enjoyed this listen and would absolutely recommend it to any audio lover.

I enjoyed it very much

I enjoyed this story very much. It has everything I look for in a book about magic: good witch, evil witch, spells, curses, and Love, plus a funny vampire and beautiful ghost. I really liked that in this story was no insta love or lust, relationship between Felix and John developed over time and it was fun following how their opinions and feelings about each other changed through out the story. Narrator did a good job and gave each character their own unique voice. I highly recommend this book to all listeners who enjoy books about love and magic.

Excellent!!

I thoroughly enjoyed the story. I only wish I had listened to it earlier!
A very unusual take in how vampires came into existence, from a curse. The way it was described is hilarious!
The characters, starting with a rather clueless Felix, jaded John, Cat, Lo and let's not forget Astray (the cat), were great. I loved the plot - John is a witch, barely living, and under a curse. He meets Felix, vampire, not to bright who is determined to frighten John. It's part hilarious, touching, scary, sweet, hot and sad as they begin to fall for each other and try to break the curse and another witch's hold.
Michael T Bradley was excellent! He captured Felix's vapidness, John's laconic demenour perfectly. He had perfect timing for John and Lo's sarcasm, and a great voice for Richard's Menace.
Highly recommend!!!!

I absolutely loved this audiobook.

Michael T. Bradley did an amazing job distinguishing the voices. I thought Felix’s voice fit him perfectly.

I found Felix to be funny, adorable and caring. John was a little sad, but knowing his predicament I completely understood.

Felix is a vampire who is trying to scare John a witch, and its just not happening. Felix won’t give up and because of this the two eventually, slowly start to care for one another. But John is cursed to die at any time.

This was an entertaining, emotional and funny story. There are a lot of really great secondary characters and they all helped bring this story to life.

I will definitely be listening to this one again.

Quirky

I loved how different this book was. I am a huge fan of old Hollywood and this twist to the mythos was fun. The humor was fabulous but it also had mystery and action.

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.