Review: Cursed by Beth Harrison

Kate Casterbridge, professor of Victorian literature, prefers to spend her evenings alone with her cat on her lap and her nose in a book. Aidan More, the world’s preeminent scholar on witches and witch burnings, has suffered the tortures of the damned over thousands of years and hundreds of incarnations. He’s bone weary and determined at all costs to fulfill the ancient obligation that binds him.

When Kate shakes hands with her drop-dead gorgeous new colleague, she knows he’s in mortal danger. A confirmed skeptic about paranormal phenomena, she’s shocked and terrified by this sinister premonition. And that’s just the beginning of what’s in store for the shy, scholarly professor and the sexy stud with a dark, horrific secret.

Aidan bewitches Kate right into his bed, where they have the hottest sex she’s ever experienced. But is there more to this mysterious stranger than meets the eye? Kate crashes head-on into a world where witchcraft is alive and well and ancient evil still holds sway—and where she’s in grave danger of losing more than just her heart.

Review by Lynelle:

I enjoyed this story and it kept me hooked till the end, I just had to find out what happened! I had mixed feelings about our hero Aidan (or Rob or Cuinn, he has many identities). When we meet Aidan he has been living life after life being reincarnated over again for the past two thousand years due to being cursed; to search out the one woman he loves and to kill her by his own hands in order to resolve the curse. At this point he is desperate to end his suffering and existence. After being cursed this present time is only the second time he has found his beloved in her reincarnated life.

For most of the book Aidan drove me nuts how he talked about how much he loves Kate but yet he is constantly lying to her, he is deceitful, wants to win her trust and love and work on his plan to kill her. I wanted to smack him a lot throughout the book! On the other hand, Kate is very smart and intelligent and is able to pick up and see through his lies and deceit. Although she is very much attracted to him, she is very skeptical of him and his explanations (which she should be!) and is very conflicted by him. Every time she called him out on a lie I wanted to just yell “You go, Kate!”

Through glimpses of Kate’s dreams/premonitions and Aidan’s memories, we get to see interactions in their previous lives together and how things occurred at those times. We learn about what he has to endure these past two thousand years that has changed him into a hardened man. While Kate is working to discover the truth to it all, Aidan is fighting to keep his resolve
to kill Kate, even though he has begun realize his feels for her are stronger than he felt for Ena, who she was in their 1st life together. With the help from someone in their past, they are given a glimmer of hope of having a future together.