Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Curses, Foiled Again
AUTHOR: Sera Trevor
NARRATOR: Michael T. Bradley
PUBLISHER: NineStar Press
RELEASE DATE: June 28, 2019
LENGTH: 9 hours, 52 minutes
BLURB:
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.
REVIEW:
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.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS:
Hey, Annika, this is Michael, the narrator for this book. I just wanted to say I really appreciate your detailed review, and really like the fact that you gave constructive criticism. I’ll say this: the first few books I did I always pulled back because I feared entering that “children playing” level of narration, but then realized it’s what *I* enjoy listening to more than the reserved style of some narrators, so I just kept pushing harder. Might be time to pull it back a notch, at least in the narrative sections.
In any case, it frustrates me that you can’t reply on Audible to reviews, so when I get a chance to say thanks to someone for a good review, I take it!
Hi Michael 🙂
Thanks for the comment. Constructive criticism is all well and good, but please don’t change something that feels right for you, because of this review only. What I mean is, changing for someone else (no matter what changes or reasons) always comes with risks. The risk of losing a part of yourself. Or in the case of narration; the risk of not connecting to the story and sounding unnatural. So stay true to yourself and your own style, and narrate the way that feels right for you, because that’s always the winning concept in the end.