The Scarletti Curse

By: Christine Feehan

Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella

Strange, twisted carvings and hideous gargoyles adorn the palazzo of the great Scarletti family. But a more fearful secret lurks within its storm-tossed turrets. For every bride who enters its forbidding walls is doomed to leave in a casket.

Nicoletta knows all too well the curse that plagues the house of Scarletti. She has always believed her miraculous healing gifts would set her apart and that no man would ever command her. Then she gazes into the dark, mesmerizing eyes of Don Scarletti and she fears for her future - for it is Scarletti's ancient right to select a bride from among his people...and he has chosen her.

Compelled by duty, driven by burning, inescapable desire, Nicoletta surrenders to this powerful, hypnotic man, giving her body willingly into his keeping. But will the tormented don be her heart's destiny...or her soul's destruction?

©2001 Christine Feehan (P)2013 HarperCollinsPublishers

Wonderful Story

Wonderful storyline with adventure, and suspense wrapped up passionate love. Christine Feehan is a masterful storyteller and Nicole Zanzarella brings the story to life with her wonderful narration. I highly recommend this book.

AMAZING

Feehan is one of my favorites, but this is by FAR her best. And Nicol Zanzarella has the most perfect voice for narration I’ve ever heard!!!!!

Loved Everything About This Audio Book

I loved everything about it. It's one of my favorite books by this author, & the narrator did a superb job of telling this story.

I love this book.... but

I love this book. I have the original audio book. It was done better then this one. This one skipped hafe of some of the words. I think it was a bit shoty on the production side of things with this copy. The narrative was good but the original narration was much better. The original narrator did a much better job with the different character's voices and made the story come to life better. but overall I think it was worth 4 stars.

BELIVE IT OR NOT

What made the experience of listening to The Scarletti Curse the most enjoyable?

TO SEE HER BELIVE IN KING

What did you like best about this story?

THAT THE YOUNGEST LADY OF THE VILLAGE WAS LOVED BY THE KING

Which scene was your favorite?

SHE SAVED THE SOLIDERS

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

WHEN THE WEDDING WAS MADE

Any additional comments?

A GREAT BOOK

Good Narrative

I found this to be a better audiobook and I truly love the story. This was the first Christine Feehan book that I read and I still cherish this story over a decade later.

Stand alone, but Dark series related

Best read after Dark Fire and before Dark Dreams. A stand-alone book, but related to the Dark series, and specifically a prequel to Dark Symphony. Nicoletta is the free-spirited but very gifted healer for her village. Protected by her village, she remains beneath the notice of the church and aristocracy until Giovanni, the local Don, calls upon her healing talents. He claims his right to choose a bride from his villages to select her, as his need to mate demands. Nicoletta and Giovanni must survive the conspiracies around them to reach their mutual love. Intro another supernatural lineage referenced at the beginning of Dark Dreams, the next book in the Dark series.
Enjoyable read with plenty of suspense around the romance.
Zanzarella does a creditable job with narration, but I still think male/female dual narration would have served this story better. Recommend!

Hanging on to every word!!

Thank you Christine yet again for an amazing love story that kept my attention through every twist and turn -
I truly loved it!!!

Very good standalone offshoot of the Dark series

4 stars

This was a very good story. I liked both Nicoletta and Giovanni and found their story to be well written and engaging. This doesn't really seem to have a tie to the Carpathians in the Dark series but both Giovanni and Nicoletta have certain "abilities" that may mean they had Carpathian ancestry.

Nicoletta is a young woman that serves as the healer for the village where she grew up. Her father was killed when she was too young to know him but her mother and aunt raised her with love until they both died. Since then, she's been mothered by another village woman, Maria Pia.

Don Giovanni Scarletti is the head of a family that's plagued by a curse. Many women and even some men have died in the last decade or 2 in his family home and there's an evil pall over it that's hard to escape. Giovanni never planned to marry because of the curse but when he meets Nicoletta for the first time, he's lost and is determined that they're meant to be together and that he will claim her as his.

Maria Pia was the village's midwife but Nicoletta has much better healing skills, some that are mystical enough that she could be branded a witch and killed for it. Nicoletta's village has always protected her secret and Maria Pia plays the senior healer while Nicoletta acts like the simpleminded assistant whenever they go outside of their village to heal someone. As this story begins, Nicoletta and Maria Pia have been called to the Don's home because of an illness. They get there to find the Don and his niece, Sophie, are both terribly sick. Nicoletta is able to determine that something was tainted in some soup they both ate and is able to heal them. Unfortunately, (at least in Nicolett'a opinion) this leads to Giovanni wanting to marry her and invoking the marriage covenant that allows the Don to claim any un-claimed woman in the local villages as his wife.

Nicoletta had already been skirting the advances of a couple of young men from her village and she truly had no interest in getting married. She had her garden in the hills and her healing and was perfectly content with that. When Giovanni claims Nicoletta, she's freaked at the idea of living in such a horrible place and she gets claustrophobia just thinking about it. Regardless of her fears, Giovanni wont let her go and she moves to his home and becomes his wife. There are multiple intrigues going on and it's hard for Nicoletta to know who to trust and if Giovanni is among the trustworthy. Giovanni is patient with her and since he has some abilities of his own, he doesn't have an issue with her abilities. It takes some time and persistence but Nicoletta and Giovanni are able to learn to trust each other and find the bad guy that's causing all the problems. They then end the story starting a well deserved HEA.

This was a very enjoyable story. I liked Nicoletta and thought she was pretty well balanced. She was a little too fearful of what was proper in the sex area at first for my taste but I guess with it being a historical it isn't unusual (thankfully, that didn't last long). Giovanni was a good hero...I wish we had been able to get some of this from his PoV, that would have been interesting. Overall, this was a very good story that I enjoyed a lot. I'd recommend it.

Suspenseful story...beautifully narrated.

I loved this historical romantic mystery full of suspense and toe curling sex. The narrator was authentic and just wonderful to listen to.