Trickery (Curse of the Gods, #1) in Reverse Harem? Anyone?

Dec 09, 2017 Mitch Please rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 5-star-favorites, fav-reverse_harem, genre-reverse_harem, genre-fantasy, fav-fantasy

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for reverse harem awesomeness and a main female character that is as hilarious as can be! I laughed out loud for most of the book!

As my introduction to Reverse Harem, this series was a WOW! I have some critiques below, but please don't think that any of these are big enough that I don't LOVE these books. I have read them four times, and I am a huge fan. These books have an actual plot that shares equal time with the romantic elements, giving it the perfect balance for a RH story. (I h ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for reverse harem awesomeness and a main female character that is as hilarious as can be! I laughed out loud for most of the book!

As my introduction to Reverse Harem, this series was a WOW! I have some critiques below, but please don't think that any of these are big enough that I don't LOVE these books. I have read them four times, and I am a huge fan. These books have an actual plot that shares equal time with the romantic elements, giving it the perfect balance for a RH story. (I hate pure romance with no separate plot-line.)

As always, Jaymin Eve's world is a little scattered and hard to keep up with (the only downside to this amazing indie author and her fantastic worlds), but this one is still fun to read about. Willa's fear of ending up as a "Jeffrey" is hilarious, and the way she drives her the sexy Abcurse guys nuts is simply perfect.

Some people think Willa is a bit cookie cutter-ish with her inability to stay on her own two feet and her tendency to end up accidentally naked (personally, I'm a fan of that! ;P), but unlike some of the other RH books I've now read, with Willa it's laugh-out-loud FUNNY! Seriously, this character's crazy inner monologue had me laughing over and over again. I would not consider this character a Mary Sue at all, and I am quite picky about whether or not I like main characters! I absolutely LOVE Willa, though, and that is very rare for me to say.

I also love how Willa grows on these guys instead of them falling madly in love with her from the start; it adds depth to the book and makes it ten times more interesting than most RH. (Plus having an actual plot other than the romance is a MUST HAVE for me.)

The fact that the boys are waaaay less sappy than the male main characters in Jaymin's other books is something I really appreciated. While I loved Brace from the Walker Saga and Kade from the Mecca Series, they were a little TOO perfect in their obsessive, neverending love (which often spilled from their lips like vomit). No man spends 90% of his time with his girlfriend rattling off what are practically soliloquies about how much he loves her. (Hell, no woman does, either, because in the real world you realize that staring into people's eyes for hours gets boring!) Such sappy personality traits are completely unrealistic, and I don't find them attractive at all--in fact, they make me feel embarrassed for the guy because it's just so overdone. If someone were to actually say the kind of stuff often written in romance books, it would sound awkward, invasive, and a little stalker-ish--especially if they were to repeat it as often as it's repeated in some novels.

In this series, the guys don't have that "stalker talk" problem (unlike the men in her previous books). They're a lot more close-mouthed and, therefore, more realistic. They express things in ways that are more realistic for men, such as through a certain amount of competitiveness, protectiveness, jealousy, roundabout compliments, and fumbling attempts to do things she will like. I like the realism of that, and I love the way their affection for her slowly grows into something more. I also like that there doesn't seem to be a "meant to be by the universe true-mate" thing going on like there was in the Walker and Mecca books. I am NOT a fan of people having some supernatural bond that makes them meant to be--I prefer more realistic relationships with their ups and downs. The Abcurse brothers most certainly have those! (Let's just say they're as dumb as rocks sometimes when it comes to dealing with human women.)

My only problem with this series was how difficult it is to keep the Abcurse brothers separate. They go by three names each in this book: their given name, their power (Strength, Persuasion, Trickery, Seduction, and Pain), and the number of their room (Willa's nickname for them). Plus, two are twins and three are triplet, all of whom are very similar physically. This makes it VERY difficult to remember which name belongs to which power and which personality traits belong to which man. I have read the series four times now, and I still can't keep Persuasion and Trickery's personalities straight, though the other three are easier.

Overall, I am a HUGE fan, and I love this series so much! I need Strength to come out NOW! ...more

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Jul 31, 2018 Weronika rated it it was amazing

When I first started reading this book the only thing I could think about is how the heroine reminded me of Bella, it was annoying to be honest. At 60 pages I almost stopped reading, but I decided to give it one more chance and oh boy, I'm so happy I did! It gets so much better and the heroine gets less annoying. In conclusion, I love reverse harem and this book gets 5 stars. ...more

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