Curse of the Gods

Title: Curse of the Gods (Trickery, Persuasion, Seduction, Strength, Neutral, Pain)

Author(s): Jaymin Eve and Jane Washington

Overall Rating: ★★★★٭

Genre: Slow burn RH, YA/NA, fantasy (for a list of abbreviations and their meanings, click here)

POV: FPPT

Stand Alone or Series: This is a series of 5 novels, with a novella (Neutral) taking place between the events of books 4 and 5. 

Prose Proficiency: Good

Editing: Average/Good 

Steam and Smut: This series is a slow burn, with book 1 containing little to no S&S, with the level ever increasing as the series progresses. By books 4 and 5, there is definitely some super high heat, including sex scenes with the MFC and more than one MMC. As I'm a definite fan of some S&S, this series was a definite hit for me.

Originality: Gonna go with a solid A here. 

Review: I discovered the Curse of the Gods series after starting the Shadow Shifters series by Jaymin Eve and needing something to read while waiting for the 3rd book in that series (which is now out!) to become available. It was my first experience with a RH, and I must say, I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to a new (for me) genre. I read the ebook version on KU, so there were occasionally some formatting issues (paragraphs breaking at the wrong spot, etc.), but having self-formatted some of my own work, I know how much of a pain it is, so it wasn't a deal breaker for me.

Willa Knight is a dweller, the lowest of the low on the totem pole, destined to live a life of servitude in the outer circles of Minatsol. Due to small prank gone unexpected, she finds herself on the way to Blesswood, the topmost academy for sols, where she will be in direct contact with the god-like beings on a daily basis. This is bad news for Willa, as she's extremely clumsy and fairly useless by her own description. She has absolutely no business attempting to be the personal servant of any sol ... let alone the Abcurses, five sol brothers who are powerful, possessive, arrogant as hell, and basically perfection personified. 

Add in a bit of ... chaos .. and things really start heating up. 

Suddenly, Willa's not quite convinced she's actually a dweller. And she's not the only one who thinks so. The Abcurses are pretty sure she's something ... different. Worse still, so do the gods. But what exactly is she? That's hard enough to figure out. What might be even harder is trying to balance the attraction she feels for not just one or two of the Abcurses, but all five of them ... and trying to manage the attraction and possession all five of them feel for her. 

This series was so much fun to read! I decided to review it as a series, because while each book is very good on its own, they really don't feel like stand alone books. Each book ends with a heavy sense of needing continuation; not quite cliffhangers, but not a real sense of finality, either. Which was fine with me, as I was able to immediately jump into the next book; I might have a different opinion had I read the series as it was originally being published. 

**A quick note: The series does have a bit of a slow start. The first five or six chapters of book 1 are mostly setup and introduction to characters, and so it doesn't really pull you into the action right from the first page. A lot of times, that's a putter-downer for me. I'm not shy about not finishing a book I'm not enjoying just for the sake of finishing it. But this series is definitely worth pushing through. If you're a skimmer, skim through until Willa gets to Blesswood; that's where the series really takes off!

As I said, this was my first experience with an RH, and I have to admit, it hooked me on the genre. Though I was skeptical at first. I really expected it to be more of a read featuring the fulfilled fantasy of it being socially acceptable for one woman to carry on sexual relationships with more than one man simultaneously. And while to an extent it was that, it was also so much more. Jane and Jaymin manage to write five seamless love stories that are all happening at the same time, and they're believable. Willa truly loves all five Abcurse brothers equally, and they all love her. And while there are definitely overtures of jealousy and possessiveness on the part of the Abcurse brothers as they all share the same woman, they are open and honest with Willa about their feelings, allowing her to manage those feelings and balance her physical affections for them. The romance--and sex--slowly builds, and while it's very hot, it's also tastefully done. I don't feel like there are any major trigger warnings that need to be mentioned; everything is consensual and fairly "vanilla," even when there are multiple partners involved.

Outside of the RH confines of the story, I found the world and characters very enjoyable. You have Minatsol, the "human" world, where the dwellers (non-magic) and sols (magically inclined) dwell, and you have Topia, the world of the gods. Sols have the potential to become gods, leaving Minatsol for Topia, but few actually make that transition. Staviti, the original creator of the gods, for devious reasons of his own, has started causing trouble, upsetting the balance between the two worlds. Willa and the Abcurse brothers, along with a cast of other charcters, including Willa's sister Emmy and Cyrus, the god of Neutrality, must do all in their power to restore the balance and save both worlds. 

The backstory behind this world is one I haven't read before. Authors Jaymin and Jane did a lot of world-building for this story, and while there were some times where I felt a little lost, where I felt like something wasn't explained quite as clearly as it could have been, the originality was definitely there, and that's something I often feel is lacking in fantasy/supernatural/paranormal fiction. Especially considering this series came from two self-published authors that I found on Kindle Unlimited. 

**For the record, that is not to imply that self-published authors aren't or can't be good, and that just because a book is on KU, it's somehow diminished in some way. That is NOT the case at all. You can find priceless gems all over the place. That being said, being an author myself who has worked for a small indie publishing company and done some self-publishing, it's not an easy world to be successful in. There are so many people out there who "publish" their work on Amazon and call themselves authors. When I pick up a self-published work, I always open it with the potential expectation it might not be my cup of tea.

Finally, the absolute best thing about this series is it's HILARIOUS!!! The humor in this series is never in short supply. Willa's klutzy attributes get her into all kinds of scrapes; watching her get out of them left me breathless and crying countless times. Literally laughing out loud to the point of tears. The dickhead scene from Strength (book 4) is to this day the funniest thing I have ever read in my life. Quite literally. It's something I never would have thought to write; an original take on a fairly common insult. I won't say any more, because it's something you definitely don't want spoiled should you choose to read. But holy amazeballs, it's the best. 

One final thing I want to note (I know, I know, I used "finally" at the beginning of my last paragraph ... I lied): Willa is a badass--I adore her--but not because of most of the reasons you'd see people list when referring to a strong female lead. Willa is clumsy, ignorant (note I did not SAY or MEAN stupid), absent-minded, often tactless (or at least tact-limited), and has no filter. She knowingly admits all these "flaws" in her character, and yet she still manages to love herself. She isn't weighed down by her flaws; rather, she finds a way to embrace them and make them work for her. She doesn't hate herself because she's not all the things she admires about her sister, Emmy--graceful, smart, well-spoken, learned, and polite--rather, she is honest about who she is and loves who she is, without apology. Never does she try to change who she is in order to make herself more desirable to the MMC's, as we see in so many female leads. Nor does she try to become something she's not for the sake of appearing "strong" or "tough." She's not your typical "strong" female lead i.e. Katniss Everdeen, Feyre Archeron, Arya Stark, etc. She's Willa Knight, and that's enough.

In summary, I highly recommend this series. It's fun, it's original, it's spicy and sexy. It's a great introduction to the RH genre with lovable characters and a world you'll be as desperate to visit as Hogwarts, Prythian, Narnia, etc. It's available on Kindle Unlimited, e-book, and paperback. To give Curse of the Gods a read, click on the link at the beginning of this post. For more works by Jaymin Eve and Jane Washington, click on their names above to follow them on Amazon.

Keep turning pages. Until next time ...

MR