Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Book review: Cursed (Voodoo Nights #1), by Lizzy Ford


Five years after her sister disappeared, seventeen-year-old Adrienne finds the strength to return to her father’s home in New Orleans. But soon after she arrives, the mark of a curse appears on her, leaving her worried. Will she be the next victim of a four-hundred-year old family curse ... the next to be claimed by a serial killer roaming the back alleys of the city?

The day before his senior year begins, Jayden is given a skeleton key passed down through his family for generations -- a gruesome reminder of how his ancestors betrayed their own people and sold them into slavery. He doesn’t believe in the curse the key allegedly bears and puts it away with the intention of forgetting about its message. Until he meets Adrienne, a girl he’s compelled to for more reasons than her beauty. 

He’s not the only one who notices her. A man in a skeleton mask and a voodoo gang member are also drawn to Adrienne. One is determined to protect her. The other intends to mislead her. Haunted by the mythical Red Man, all are connected to the ancient curse.

Can they overcome their misgivings about one another and prevent the dark prophecy looming over them? Or will they be lured away from each other by evil’s siren song?


Received through NetGalley.

If I had to use one word to describe Cursed, it would definitely be “creepy.” The voodoo mythology of New Orleans, Africa and Haiti is deeply  woven into it, not going soft on the details for the sake of the readers’ stomachs.  That’s for the best, I think.  It would’ve lost something if the author held back or was forced to censor herself.

One of the things I appreciated about the book was the fact that Jayden was willing to think that voodoo might be real, when given evidence.  He does spend most of the book not accepting it, because the only things he’s ever seen involving it were his family locking themselves in a shed and cutting off parts from animals.  After Adrienne is cursed so she can’t sing anymore, he’s still skeptical, but he’s willing to think about  it being caused by something supernatural rather than immediately shooting the idea down.  One of my pet peeves is characters who are dense, because most of the time, it seems like it’s just for the sake of the plot so the author can make a ton of things happen to make the person believe something.

Another good thing is that the author managed to use dialect without making it look awkward or making it unreadable.  Considering the background and current circumstances of the characters, they aren’t going to be talking like Ivy league college-educated people.

And of course I appreciated that the Red Man ended up not just being some random, faceless entity.  No spoilers, of course, but there’s an actual backstory to him, and even though what he does is horrible, it gives more depth to the story.  A random, faceless entity would’ve just made it shallow, at least in my opinion.

There were a few things I was frustrated with.  For instance, whenever Adrienne is talking about leaving because something bad happened, she almost always says she’ll “go back to New Orleans.” They are in New Orleans, and since she came over there from Atlanta, I’m guessing Ford meant to put that.  If it was just once it might not be so bad, but it’s a constant mistake, one that shouldn’t even need an editor to catch, just a glance-through from the author.  Also, I don’t know if it was just the copy I got from NetGalley, but there were notes leftover from editing, randomly talking about the different between original French and Creole.  And it does end in a really weird place, even for a book that’s obviously going to have a sequel.


In the end I’d probably give this three-and-a-half stars.  It’s great, but a few obvious problems bring it down.

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