Reviewed by: Sue Eaton
TITLE: Cursed: Ride or Die
AUTHOR: Eden Winters
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 315 pages
RELEASE DATE: February 19, 2022
BLURB:
If they stop running, they die.
Slade Slater’s had a great life until he pissed off a sorcerer, who dooms Slade to a life of endless wandering. Linger anywhere for more than a month and his life is forfeit. The only way to break the evil curse? Sacrifice true love. Which won’t be an option anytime soon. Slade’s been alone for a long time. Cursed nomads, it turns out, are a solitary bunch. After all, who could fall in love with a man who can never settle down? But everything changes the night he stumbles upon an injured shifter.
Noah’s never known the companionship of a pack and desperately longs for the security of his own kind. Danger stalks him, forcing him to spend his life hiding from humans until a cursed human lights up his bleak world. Saved from near death by the sexy stranger with tats for days and a big, black Harley, Noah finds that, while he might be the only werewolf in the eastern US, he doesn’t have to be alone.
Though they’re stalked by ruthless enemies, Slade and Noah might be each other’s salvation.
If they can outrun the hunters.
REVIEW:
This is a very melancholy book; the sadness and despair permeate every page. The premise for the story was interesting. What if you were forced to leave everything and everyone you knew, never able to stay in one place always moving but not able to go back to where you’d been. I really felt for Slade, it is an insidious harsh punishment that really didn’t fit the crime, he didn’t kill anyone, didn’t steal a priceless magical artifact. He just slept with the wrong man and then hurt his feelings when he didn’t want a repeat. He was selfish and callous but, in my opinion, didn’t deserve such a terrible fate. You could really feel the despair washing over Slade when he misses out on so much with his family. The reality of never being able to connect with anyone before he moves on. Such a sad and lonely existence with no end in sight.
Then we have Noah, a young shifter, who has never known a pack, taken in by another wolf at a young age with no memory of his past or how he came to be there. Drilled into him relentlessly not to trust humans, to keep a low profile and hide away as much as possible. Then one day his father figure disappears, and the hunters come. I cheered when Noah fought off the hunters and cried when his only home burnt down. Again, we have a lone man, socially inept and awkward, never having had much interaction with society not knowing the social norms and technology. Never settling in one place, scared and alone. Always looking over his shoulder for hunters.
I really got how the hunters found his home originally, but it was never really explained how they continued to find him across the country. The continuous fear of discovery and the escapes when he is discovered really ramps up the tension and anxiety. My heart sank when I turned the page and the title of the chapter was “10 years later”, such a profound way of noting the passing of time.
Then Slade and Noah meet, it was traumatic as Noah had been shot but also so lovely that these two lost souls had found someone who could empathize with them, both in the same boat of always searching. It was a bittersweet romance of them coming together tinged with sadness as they knew they’d always have to part. Slade being prepared to sacrifice everything to find Noah a pack. Noah always wanting to belong to a pack but wanting Slade as well, wondering that even within a pack, would he still be alone, on the outside struggling to fit in.
I enjoyed the book, there were a few twists along the way and the bittersweet romance between Slade and Noah was handled so well.
RATING:
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