Today, I’m featuring The Magician’s Curse for my Halloween Book Festival series.

What Amazon says

She seeks adventure. He battles his darkness. Will a curse end their beautiful magic?

A 2017 Paranormal Romance Guild Reviewer’s Choice Award Winner!

Herman Anderson hopes there’s more to life than her challenging past. So when a mysterious and alluring stage magician invites her to be his assistant, the seventeen-year-old can’t wait to start the behind-the-scenes training at his gothic Ontario mansion. But after she senses a growing attraction between her and the trained illusionist, she wonders what’s holding him back from stirring love’s magic.

Stephen Dagmar lives every day with the knowledge of his family’s curse. But as he sets the path in motion to destroy the dark sorcery, his stunningly beautiful stage partner throws his plan into turmoil. And as the sparks shine brighter with each passing moment, the magician fears that breaking free of the spell will crush Herman’s heart.

As the days tick down to Herman’s 18th birthday, she starts to unlock the secrets of the Dagmar family mansion. And each one is stranger and more painful than the last…

Will the magician and his assistant break their supernatural chains to discover true love?

The Magician’s Curse: A Paranormal Romance is Linda G. Hill’s enchanting debut book in her series, The Great Dagmaru. If you like passionate partnerships, hidden secrets, and powerful magic, then you’ll love this captivating tale.

Buy The Magician’s Curse to uncover the dark truth today!

My review

Herman has a most unusual name which has been a burden to her all her school life. Why on earth would her parents saddle her with a boy’s name? As this interesting book, filled with magic and mystery progresses, Herman finds out that it is not only her name that is unusual about her, or her parents choice that is unusual about them.

Herman’s mother has been very ill for a long time and her father is never there to offer any support to his family. Herman assumed the role of mother to her younger brother, Chad, when she was very young and now she is breaking free to establish a life for herself. She plans to bring her brother to live with her once she is settled and earning an income. On the train to her new job, Herman meets a riveting young man who introduces himself as Stephen. Much to Herman’s surprise, Stephen professes to be as taken with her as she is with him, so when he asks her to work for him as his assistant she doesn’t put up much of a fight. Fortunately for Herman, Stephen, who is a magician, is genuine in his offer for her to become his assistant and she quickly discovers that there is more to his magic than meets the eye. In fact, Herman soon comes to realise that the household staff and Stephen’s entire lifestyle is fairly unorthodox.

The attraction between Herman and Stephen is incredibly strong but Herman can sense there is something not quite right with their relationship and this causes her to hold back from committing herself completely to him. What is Stephen’s secret and will Herman be able to accept it when she eventually discovers what it is? I did like the fact that the character of Stephen illustrated respect for Herman and gave her the opportunity to make her own choice about his unusual situation.

This book is for adults and, although not graphic, it does contain descriptions of sex and suggestions of sexual freedoms. The romantic aspect of this book is the overriding genre with the supernatural element playing a lessor role.

US Amazon Purchase Link: https://www.amazon.com/Magicians-Curse-Paranormal-Romance-Dagmaru-ebook/dp/B0721ZH2KN

My Halloween Book Fair choice for today is Maledicus by Charles F. French.

What Amazon says

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” (Edmund Burke) Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Franklin attempts to make it through life day by day. Roosevelt is a widower, who lost his beloved wife to cancer and a retired history professor, and he has not stopped grieving. He and his two closest friends, also retired and who have also lost loved ones, form a paranormal investigation group. They hope to find an answer to the question: is there life after death? When asked by a local teacher to investigate a possible haunting of her house, the group discovers an evil beyond anything they could have imagined. This is no mere ghost. Maledicus, who was in life a pimp, torturer, and murderer during Caligula’s reign in Rome, in death has become a sociopathic demon that attacks the weak and the innocent. Maledicus threatens a five year old child’s life and soul. Terrified by what they have discovered, Roosevelt and his friends must choose to either walk away from this threat , or to do battle with this ancient creature at the potential loss of their sanities, their lives, and their souls.

My review

Maledicus is the right hand man to Caligula, Emperor of the Roman Empire, and they are equally despicable, inhumane and outright evil. Maledicus has plans, great plans, whereby he will ascend to the top position of Emperor but he underestimates the incumbent, Caligula, and his many eyes and ears. Maledicus never achieves his aspirations and is dispatched to the afterlife in an unpleasant and painful way.

In the non world between Heaven and Hell, Maledicus lurks. He is not reconciled to his unnatural death and believes his chance to aspire to greatness will come. He sets about manipulating events and circumstances to achieve his ultimate goals of greatness.

Meanwhile, time has moved on and in the 21st century, three elderly and retired men, Roosevelt, Sam and Jeremy, have formed a ghost-investigating group, with the occasional help and support from Roosevelt’s nephew, ex-US Marine, Patrick. They have all suffered personal losses and this is a great way for them to keep themselves mental and physically active and to indulge in an interest in ghosts and the supernatural. When their Investigative Paranormal Society (“IPS”) gets its first really legitimate case, they find themselves up against an on-going evil that refuses to die. Can the IPS go up against an ancient and expanding evil and expect anything other than untimely deaths?

I enjoyed the characters of Roosevelt, Sam, Jeremy and Patrick and learning about their individual losses and life experiences, all of which weave together into the fabric of this well planned story.

The idea behind this book is fresh and clever and the ending was superb. I was really impressed by the author’s unique and thrilling ending.

Amazon US purchase link: https://www.amazon.com/Maledicus-Investigative-Paranormal-Society-Book/dp/1533425434