Her heart was flatlining. Her magic wasn’t.Asha wakes up in the hospital with thirty-six stitches in her head and no memory of the attack that put her there. The damage to her skull was catastrophic, but she surprises the medical team with her lightning-quick healing—and by inexplicably sending their equipment flying across the room.
She soon learns that she is Asha Rook—The Cursebreaker—and she's just become the prime target of every ruthless bounty hunter wizard in the Realm of Magic & Mayhem.
To add to the high stakes, a curse has landed an innocent woman in a terrifying asylum, and it’s Asha’s job to save her.
Asha must rely on her eccentric found family, finding belonging and banter with allies who accept her complex and dangerous nature. This includes an unnervingly attractive and steadfast cop (an epic slow burn), a sassy goblin who trades portal magic for tacos and lime milkshakes, and her beloved steampunk dwarf godmother, who is equally talented at roasting perfect potatoes as she is at creating magitech weapons.
Join Asha and her ragtag team as she embraces her destiny, navigating pocket realms and battling evil to break the ultimate curse. With more twists and turns than you can shake a wand at, this is a dark magic mystery with humor, adventure, and a whole lot of heart.
Fans of Patricia Briggs, Jim Butcher, and Ilona Andrews will burn through this totally addictive urban fantasy series.
Read the complete 6-book series now!
• Curses and curse-breaking
• Kick-ass female protagonist
• Amnesia
• Hidden Magical World
• Gritty Urban Setting
• Diverse Supernatural Creatures
• Haunted houses; ghost children
• Secret Societies and Organizations
• Found banter and belonging
• Slow burn deep connection romance
• Huge, satisfying happy ever after
Start reading now and stay up all night with USA Today bestselling author and Kindle All-Star JT Lawrence.
When a book starts by trying to convince me how amazing and distinguished the author is, I'm already skeptical about whatever I'm about to read. And, as is usually the case, my skepticism turned out to be warranted.
I don't really know how else to describe this story other than "meh." Everything is very formulaic. Everything is meh.
The romance is as subtle as a brick to the face (inexplicable constant attraction), and the other characters don't make any sense. The way everyone treats the MC after she loses all her memories is just weird. How the MC just trusts everyone is kind of weird as well, though at least somewhat understandable, as she still seems to have some instinctive sense of who is trustworthy. It takes moon-sized balls to trust your gut instinct after not remembering anything about yourself and not recognizing anyone-without ever doubting yourself-like that.
But back to the supporting cast: they all just trust her outright, despite being witches or having other magical powers and secret relations. Are they all suicidal? Are they trying to be found out? And the MC just rolls with it all, as if, of course, she's part of a secret coven of witches. No memory of magic even existing-but of course. There could be a subtle exploration of the question how much you is made up of your memories and how much of you is intrinsic to you. In the past we believed that we are exclusively made up of our memories but nowadays, with a lot of sad cases of dementia and alzheimers, we have learned that some parts of your personality are intrinsic in a way, that even without working memory, you still retain some level of personality. Even without explicitly discussing these questions, how far can you trust a person that suffered severe brain damage? These types of injuries, along with loss of memory, can lead to drastic sweeping changes in personality. Is the MC even the same person that she was before the attack? But all these questions fly straight over the authors' head. None of this is even being considered. The memory loss really only operates as a very blunt plot device to introduce the reader to the MCs life and to operate as a tool for exposition as well as an initial story hook. That's it.
That was around 20% into the book, and it's where I decided to stop. No effort is put into believable character motivations. The conflict (evil dudes in black robes trying to kill her) feels artificial and reeks of classic stupid-bad-guy syndrome, with lots of direct assistance from the author. I know almost nothing about the core conflict, but it already makes no sense. While it's plausible that this is just a lack of information and a larger, coherent picture might emerge later, judging by the rest of the writing and the story so far, I very much doubt it.
The only part that felt pretty decent was the writing itself. There are a few clunky phrases, but compared to the quality of the story, the writing seemed surprisingly good. The narrator did a great job smoothing those few problems over as well, and I wouldn't be surprised if the same is true for grammar mistakes and other problems. But it might just be thanks to a great editor or the authors' eye for detail in that regard.
I might be convinced to give this another try with a direct recommendation from someone who doesn't rate 95% of their library five stars, but so far, I'm not impressed and I don't have the patience to read on in vague hopes that all this mediocrity is just a ruse that hides an amazing story.
3.5-4 there are parts of the book I liked and others I scratched my head at. Asha is a good character, I just think the amnesia thing went on way too long. At the end, it would have been nice to see Nicola settled in her new life. Sam.. hmmm I’m still thinking. Overall it’s not a bad book, (did they really have to talk about how the Orcs smell 🙄🙄), also, I really hate the sexual assault/rapr troupe of women in these books, a book can stand on its own and the women can develop strong characters without that.
DNF at 65%. I was enjoying the main storyline of a witch with amnesia rediscovering her kickass powers. But the secondary storyline was extensive descriptions of medical torture and abject helplessness, I couldn’t take it.
In magical South Africa, Asha wakes up from a devastating attack with no memory. She’s a witch, a curse breaker, and her job is important- but can she do it with her memory gone?
First up, this is a spin-off/sequel series to the author’s Blood Magic series, for which it contains minor spoilers. You don’t need to have read those, but it does help set the scene somewhat. There are three stories in this book. First there is Asha’s tale, and how she struggles to figure out her life despite her memory loss. Then there is Nicki’s tale, a woman who ends up in a terrible place. Bear with the story as they *do* intersect in an intriguing and unexpected way. Thirdly, there is the tale of the missing children, about which very little is explored in this book, and which promises to be an overarching storyline for a while. Asha is a fascinating character, and I really liked reading about her- she’s tough, magical, and sometimes a little unexpected! I was a little confused with her detective though, Sam said he wasn’t married, though he wore a ring… so who knows? Either way, he had a baptism by fire and came out of it well. Those who have read the Blood Magic series will recognize several of the side characters in this book from that series, and there is even a cameo from the heroine of that series.
All in all, this was a entertaining and enjoyable introduction to a new heroine, and a fascinating visit back to magical Johannesburg (at least as think that’s where they are!) Recommended for Urban Fantasy and Blood Magic series fans.
So this was interesting. Though frankly not quite my cuppa tea.
For one thing the writing is very floral, flowing, a wordsmith really laying on the wordsmithing, crafting their prose... I almost quit right there in the prologue cause it was so weird and more than mildly offputting. I wanted to at least make it to the actual story so I stuck with it and while the writing did become somewhat more "normal", it still showed an obvious lean towards the 'poetic?' I dunno, something..
And yes, the story itself was intriguing and had "lots of potential" as they say, the execution of it fell somewhat short imo. I guess it was very much a case of "too much of a good thing". As River Song would say: "I hate good wizards in fairy tales. They always turn out to be him (Doctor Who)." Like Asha here had a all these different "personas", titles, jobs, etc.
Storytelling / plot development was all over the place and quite often inconsistent, especially with regards to her amnesia, at times I caught myself flipping back a page cause it seemed like I missed a step or a mile along the way... I was also a little disappointed that the writer didnt make more of the location. For about 98% of the book it might as well have been anywhere in this world (or a fictional one for that matter)
Asha wakes up in the hospital with no memory after a brutal attack. She should have died but has miraculously recovered. When Asha learns more about her attack and returns to her daily life, she realizes she doesn't live a normal life. There is a whole magical world out there, and Asha is the Cursebreaker.
The Dusk Reapers is fast-paced and kept my interest, and Asha's life is definitely interesting. There is a lot to unpack with her mysterious past and quirky friends, so there's plenty of storyline still to explore in this series. However, I'm not sure I will continue reading after this book. I thought the book lacked focus, and I'm not sure the blurb fit the book. It seemed to overpromise what was actually going to happen. I may return later because there are some unanswered questions and things I'm curious about. Asha's past is a question mark, and this isn't a romance, but there is some potential for her to have a relationship with the detective who investigated her attack. I'm going to let this one marinate for a bit and maybe come back later to book 2. For now, it's 4 stars, and if you like urban fantasy with no romance, you will probably like this book.
I’m very intrigued by this book, but I’m going to put it aside for now for a couple reasons:
1) I primarily listen/read audiobooks and will very often do immersive reading where I listen while I read along. This series only appears to have audiobooks for the first 2 books.
2) I struggle with books where amnesia or time travel are used as a plot device and the author is not able to convey adequately how the character is affected by the amnesia that makes sense. This book so far has not been all that successful with this plot device and I’m already frustrated by it. I realize humans do a lot of things without thinking about it, if we didn’t then we’d likely die since we wouldn’t remember to breathe or eat or things like that. But Asha doesn’t recall who she is at all, nor people in her life, and she doesn’t remember her home to the point of not knowing how to get there, and when she’s first there she has to take a tour of it to get reacquainted with it. So, she doesn’t know how to get to her house from the hospital, yet she knows how to get to this yoga studio???? What?
The book improves tremendously as it moves forward. The beginning is quite strange and doesn't make much sense. There are hints (but not much more) later in the book. The corresponding POV chapters are a bit jarring in their differences. Also, Nicky's experiences in the hospital were horrendous and disturbing. There should probably be a trigger warning for both attempted rape and torture. The storyline jumps around a bit - there is a lot going on. It seems pretty crazy that all of Rook's friends think she can just jump right in where she left off when she has total amnesia and remembers nothing of what she used to do or how she did it. There are other parts of the book that just seem like too much of a stretch to really follow. The ending does give a bit more clarity to a few things so hopefully we'll be able to see what Rook is really like in Book 2.
There is some character and situational overlap from Jax's story but completing that series is not necessary to understand this series.
I almost DNF'd this book sooo many times. There are so many plot issues that bothered me with this book but the ones that stuck out the most were:
- the main character has 2 main tasks/jobs that she's supposed to be looking into. Find the missing girls and get the woman out of the psycho ward before they kill her. She doesn't do ANYTHING to find the girls and she BARELY gets to the woman in time.
- the POV switches back and forth between the main character Asha and the secondary character Nicola whom Asha is supposed to be rescuing. The POV's are supposed to be happening simultaneously but what seems to be taking the secondary character WEEKS to accomplish/experience, is happening in only a matter of days in the main character's POV.
I only finished this book because it was the audio version and I didn't have anything better to listen to while crocheting but I still found myself yelling at the characters and tossing my work down a couple times at the stupidity/disbelief of the story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
What would you do if you were plopped into your life and had no memory of any of it? What would you think of yourself if you looked around your home with fresh eyes, like you’d never been there before? Your name, family and friends, all the past memories that make you YOU just gone. And then you find out that magic is real, and you were a magic user before you lost your memory.
That is the excellent premise of this story. It sucked me right in, then the amazing characters and world building kept me going. My only minor complaint is that the pacing was a bit uneven, but otherwise it was an excellent story. I can’t wait to start the next book in the series.
Improves as it goes along, but it took quite a bit to get past the initial premises of a psychologist and detective randomly breaking a suspected murderer with a severe head injury /amnesia out of a hospital ward. The random new information that springs up out of nowhere at regular intervals is both a weakness (what? how? why? huh?) and it’s greatest strength- lots of surprises (whaaa?!) and indulgences. Some of it might be presumed knowledge from the previous series, which I haven’t read, I guess? The romance is the slowest burn but very sweet. It’s a fast-paced easy read with lots of cozy wish-fulfilment.
FWIW I feel invested enough to have bought the box set to carry on from here, I’m just stingy with stars in general because I like to stratify honestly for my own records.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
It was a good plot, decent world building, interesting concept. However, it needs a better editor. I'm usually okay with a few errors, a missing period, a misspelled word, etc. This didn't actually have those, that I saw. It did have lines that repeated and ripped me out of the story. It turns midnight and then does it again two paragraphs later. An entire long sentence repeats immediately after itself. The worst was a battle where the villain's weapon gets destroyed. Then he fights with it again, loses it, and our protagonist picks it up. These are things an editor would catch, but spell check won't. I finished this one, but unfortunately I won't be continuing the series.
The premise of this book is top-notch, and I was really excited about it, but the pacing was a little slow and the second POV from the asylum victim was always really jarring to the story and just wasn't very compelling. It eventually tied together, and in a pretty interesting way, but I still got to the point of just reading until that POV, sighing, and then putting the book down. I'm still going to continue with the series since that POV should theoretically be resolved, but am hoping for better flow of the next book.
The Dusk Reapers is the first book in Cursebreaker series. I really enjoyed this book and found the story interesting. Asha is a green witch and the Cursebreaker. She wakes up in a hospital with no memory but soon finds out she better remember so she can help people or they will die. This book was filled with magic, mystery, suspense and supernatural creatures. I loved learning things about Asha and really loved hope to learn more about her in the next book. I highly recommend reading this book!
eh, just eh... although I did love dead stick or dead leaf water... other than that it was a bit unrealistic (yeah, I know it's fantasy) but amnesia and everyone still treats her totally the same, she knows nothing of magic but accepts magic with no issue and things just happen for her... I mean, how does she have money or remember her accounts, it was all just way to much suspension of belief for me to really really be able to step outside the and then there's this thinking.
Warnings of medical torture, assault, attempted sexual assault, etc.
Asha Viridan Rook has amnesia at the worst time possible. She awakes in a hospital with thirty-six stitches and no memories. She needs to learn quickly though as there’s a bounty on her head, a curse to break and missing children to save. Can she survive it all or will the bounty hunters win the day?
Fast paced read that I found hard to put down. Quirky characters and lots of questions still to be answered in the next volume. Urban fantasy with what sounds like a pretty slow burn romance.
Pretty solid start to the series and I liked the fact that the main character started out with amnesia. Was a clever way to introduce us to who she was and the world she lived in. I also enjoyed the overlaps with places and people from the Blood Magic series. That was fun!
Otherwise lots of action and battles and tight corners. All of these people seem to have a really high tolerance for pain!
With writing that puts you fully in each scene an exciting story is told and original characters are forged. This is an outstanding example a superior Urban fantasy story. Asha is one of those characters whose life you'd happily slip into despite the dangers. Well thought out and well written.
Such a bewitching story, which had me hooked from the start, to detriment of my other books on the go. I really enjoyed finding the links to another series. The MC was human enough and vulnerable enough to have me fully rooting for her. I love and envy her on the descriptions of her garden, and some of her talents. And her friends.
I enjoyed reading this book. I really like the lost memory premise. There is a lot of suspense and action. I found it hard to put down, I really wanted to know what was going to happen next. There were also plenty of surprises I did not see coming.
A thriller for sure! So many times Rook should have been dead, and she survives! I love all the characters and how they come to life. This looks to be a fantastic series to read.
Excellent start to the series. This well written urban fantasy, with excellent world building, and great, different characters, was a shear delight to fall into. A perfect escape from the real world.
I was bored and DNF’d at 34%. I like the idea of a witch waking up with amnesia, but the plot was all over the place. She was constantly adding new people to her life and just immediately trusting them. Then there was another random POV.
It sounds promising! I like the ideea and the description of the action, you almost feel the pain, the madness and the fear. I hope that we get some steam in the second book