An Inheritance of Curses by Dee J Holmes

Description from Amazon:

The Four Houses of Magic—light-seeking fae, blood-fueled vampires, loyal werewolves, and power-driven witches—barely survived a century of conflict. Now they exist divided, bound by a single promise: never The Four shall meet.

That rule has just been broken.

Heir to a brutal legacy, witch Rose LeFey is determined to confront her aunt and prove she’s finished with blood magic. Instead, she finds the basement full of prisoners: a sarcastic vampire staked to a table; a beautiful, defiant fae princess in an iron cage; and an insanely attractive werewolf chained to the wall.

He’s massive, covered in fur, and furious at being held captive.

She can’t look away—even if she should.

Contact between the Houses is strictly forbidden. But Rose can’t leave any of them at her aunt’s mercy.

Except the werewolf is a trap. As soon as Rose touches him, a mate-bond snaps between them. Curses. She walked right into a spell designed to tear apart her self control—and drive her straight into her aunt’s clutches. Her aunt has unleashed war on the magical Houses and humans alike—and she wants Rose’s magic at her side.

Hex that.

To stop her, Rose must risk everything and strike a bargain with the former captives. Tricky, as the vampire wants revenge, the fae to save her mother’s life, and the werewolf to protect his pack at all costs.

Yet working together might not be enough. Not when the true threat might be Rose’s deadly powers and her growing desire to make the false-bond real.

 

I was in the mood for a bit of urban fantasy and found this on my kindle. Contrary to what a lot of reviewers are saying, I rather enjoyed it!

From the offset you can feel how the story is going to be told and it is true to an urban fantasy book. When Rose reaches the basement, you are actually thrown into a conundrum trying to work out who is telling the truth and who she will save.

I think this is one of those books where you don’t need to take it apart for the story or writing but just read it in the spirit it was intended. Especially the false-mate bond between Rose and Dar and how extreme and repetitive it is.

What the author does well is not give each character equal weight, so we only get a glimpse into Sebastian (I enjoyed him!) while moving through others’ stories a lot more. I’m hoping these will be equalled out in further books. The story itself and the fight against dark magic is intense, with many of the scenes being so action filled you want to turn the pages as quickly as you can. But then there were scenes that felt repeated, especially with the bond and the werewolves and trust issues. Some scenes definitely bordered on the “is this age appropriate for everyone?” steamy!

What constantly stopped my reading, though, was the POV jumps with no clear break as to who was speaking. The problem with the sections was that some could not even be regarded as full sections as they were thoughts broken into another, and an omniscient narrator would not have worked here. And typos... far too many.

I did like that the story ended without ending. There was some form of resolution, but it’s not over and yet does not finish on a cliffhanger. It’s a “turn your brain off” kind of read, and sometimes that’s just what you need!