The first chapter or two was good, but then it seemed like a different author took over. It became this stream of consciousness-style writing you expect from a bad student who waited until the last minute to write his 12-page paper the night before it was due.

I got halfway through and stopped because I just didn't like the writing, the plot had a little promise.

Chalice is the daughter of a Hatchet Knight and a fallen angel. The Hatchet Knights are a group of women, formed during the Crusades, who have special abilities. In Chalice’s case, she has extra-sensitive senses. She has to wear contact lenses, nose plugs and ear plugs when she goes out in order to close off the overload of sensory input.

Chalice was born in a monastery and thinks her mom died giving birth to her. When Chalice turned thirteen, a man named Gavin comes to the monastery claiming that he is Chalice’s dad. The monks have no reason to doubt him since he has ways to prove his fatherhood but Chalice knows that Gavin is lying because she heard him talking to his men from miles away. Chalice calls him on the lie so he kills the monks and takes her captive.

Fast-forward 12 years. Chalice is bonded to Shui, a vicious gargoyle. Gavin, a member of the Vyantara, masters of dark magic, controls Shui, and unless Chalice makes contact with Shui every 72 hours, Chalice will turn into a gargoyle as well. Gavin uses this forced bonding to control Chalice and she is forced to use her senses to be a supernatural thief. Her one friend in this mess is Aydin, a warrior from the Crusades who can turn into a ghost at will. But Aydin, like Chalice is bonded to a gargoyle named Shojin. He shows her, though, that not all magic is bad.

This is a fascinating story that kept me glued to it to the very end. It is also obviously part of a series. I usually hate this type of marketing, but this story was so good that I can’t wait to read the others. I want to find out what happens to Chalice, Aydin (the warrior), Echo (elf), Geraldine (the saint) and Quin (psychic). The characters are realistic, the settings familiar enough for the reader to be comfortable with, and the problems Chalice faces laid out well enough to be believable. Ms. Duvall is a talented fantasy writer with a vivid imagination who did her research. If I had any issues with the story, it was that it was too short. I wanted more, which I’m certain I will get with the next installment(s).

I definitely recommend this to anyone who likes urban fantasies.

Knight’s Curse was kindly provided to me by Netgalley for Harlequin.

Interested in more of my reviews? Visit my blog!

Storyline
Chalice is an extremely gifted individual with heightened sight, hearing, and smell. After she is abducted from her home in a monastery she is trained as a thief by the Vyantara, ’an international organization of nefarious magic users who profited from the sale of charmed and cursed objects I stole for them.’ She knows very little about why she is who she is or who her parents are but after finding out information about her who her mother is, Chalice is desperate to break the curse that keeps her a slave to the Vyantara.

Thoughts
This was an intriguing read from the very beginning, but once the storyline progressed and added new elements I was a bit thrown.

Spoiler

Wasn’t really expecting angels. Not what I thought this was about.

Plus with the weird details of her slavery and the gargoyle neck licking thing… well I’ve probably said too much already. Suffice it to say it was different, but not necessarily in a bad way, and was still interesting enough to keep me reading.

Chalice’s enhanced senses were an interesting concept, but her being able to ‘slide’ her contacts in and out was highly unrealistic. Where does she put them when she’s not wearing them? In her pocket? What about pocket fuzz? Don’t they dry out and shrivel up or anything? Where’s her travel bottle of opti-fresh or her mini travel case? Yes, I put a lot of thought into this even though it’s pretty inconsequential and they probably aren’t you average type of contacts anyways. I am a contact lens wearer for over 15 years though so I understand that contacts don’t slide in an out. And they do shrivel up. Okay, probably put far too much thought into it but whatever. It bothered me.

I enjoyed the various characters that were presented in this story… definitely added to the originality. The jewel-encrusted frog named Ruby was a cute addition. The ‘jewel-encrusted lie-detecting frog’ was a bit overkill though, but I did still enjoy her part in the story. Also, I loved the concept of the shape-shifting animal named Ling-Ling, but all I could think of when they said her name was ‘Ling-Ling the giant panda bear’.

I think the world building was lacking which is always a problem for me, especially when there were SO many supernatural creatures. There needed to be some development of some sorts, rather than just leaving it as the world we live in with supernaturals thrown in for good measure. The main characters weren't extremely likable either and pair that with the lack of world-building and I wasn't entirely overjoyed with this book. Okay, so in retrospect, I was being a bit knit-picky with this one but there were a lot of things that didn’t sit well with me. It was interesting enough but I’m not sure I’ll be continuing the series.

For thirteen years, Chalice has been forced to steal artifacts for the man who abducted her from the only home she ever knew. He's used her differences to his and his organizations advantage while making life for Chalice a living hell.

It's on a mission for Gavin, her sorcerer captor, and his organization Vyantara, that she discovers there is more to the world she lives in than what she was led to believe. It's Aydin, a 900+ year old Turk warrior who helps her realize that her gifts are important to bring together a circle of women warrior who can protect the world from evil.

I was hopeful this was going to be another book that would sway my angel reluctance. Unfortunately, it wasn't.

Here's my issue with the story.

Chalice is a woman that was abducted and abused by Grant, who has delusions of grandeur on ruling the magical underworld. He forces her to steal magical artifacts for this purpose. He's also managed to bond her with a gargoyle, which must lick her every three days or she'll die. Nice guy...right? I should have felt sorry for her, having gone through all of this, but I didn't. Instead, I kept wondering why she didn't do something to change what was happening to her. Sure Gavin always seemed to know where she was and what she was doing, but at some point don't you figure out how to be sneaky just to get away from the bastard?
The "romance" between Aydin and Chalice was weird. She liked him, she suspected him of lying to her and then she liked him again. Then she suspected he was still in love with someone else. He was never more than outwardly friendly with her during the entire story, then towards the very end, they're is almost a declaration of love. WHAT???
I'm still confused about the Saint Geraldine, the angel talkers, the Fallen, the Vyantara and what the heck is going on. There was no back history on who the Vyantara are or why they are doing what they're doing today.


I'm sure others will enjoy this book, but there were one too many unanswered questions or moments were I was scratching my head to engage my interest.

RECEIVED FROM: Net Galley For Review


***NOTE MY REVIEWS OFTEN CONTAIN SPOILERS***


Chalice is a Vyantara thief, kidnapped as a child from a monetary she has been forced to use her enhanced sense to steal magical artifacts from around the world ever since. The one thing she desires more than anything else is her freedom, a chance to have a life of her own away from her captors and the things they force her to do. She doesn’t trust magic, she’s only seen the bad side of it. When she meets Aydin another Vyantara thief he opens up a new world to her, a world where not all magic is evil and shows her another side to the world of magic. Together they must discover an escape from the Vyantara so that they can fulfill her destiny, to reunite the Hatchet Knights she was born from and help them to protect the world. But with evil surrounding them, can they make it out of the organization that has kept them captive so long alive?

The first thing I have to say is that I didn’t understand the relationship between Aydin and Chalice. I mean yes he was helping her because he was sworn to protect the order of the Hatchet Knights. But Chalice trusts him and falls for him rather quickly over the spans of what a couple days. DuVall’s created this character who was basically violently abducted from a monastery, forcible bonded to a vicious killer gargoyle and forced to steal even though it goes against all her believes. She’s never had one person in her life she could depend on her trust. Knowing that it doesn’t make sense that she’d let Aydin in so quickly or trust any attraction she might feel for him. I mean yeah I could eventually see a bond forming between them over time, but as quickly as this one did, I just found it very hard to believe and that’s one of my major issues with the story. I honestly think with the type of character DuVall has created here it would take Aydin coming through for her multiple times and proving what type of person he was before any sort of trust would occur. Trust is earned, it’s not a gift and with a character like this it should take a lot more time and be a lot harder for that trust to be earned than what is shown in the story. My second issue with the book as that though the end of the novel was written with a sense of closure, the story itself seemed less like plot and more like world building. Meaning what we’ve been offered in this first novel in the series seems more like setting the scene and creating a world the reader can understand. I guess the intent of the plot was for Chalice to get free of the Vyantara so she could begin her destiny of uniting the Hatchett Knights. But while there was a lot going on I wouldn’t really call the book fast paced and neither would I call the plot I don’t know driven I guess I’d say. It didn’t really feel like the story had a beginning middle and end. It more felt like the scene for the world has been set, the main character is being built and suddenly there’s an end that does have a feel of closure but I just don’t really know how to explain it. While the world was interesting I think this book would have served better as the start to a longer novel, rather than writing the final scenes with a sense of closure it would have served better as a scene transition to a new chapter in the character’s life. Also while DuVall has created an interesting world here I don’t feel she explained things enough, the history is missing from the story. We sort of know what the Vyantara is, but we don’t know how long they’ve existed or why or really what their purpose is other than to make money. I can’t see an organization existing as long as this one is hinted to have existed without a larger purpose beyond monetary gain. Also how does anyone know Chalice’s destiny, why was this order of Knights really created? Finishing this novel leaves a lot more questions than there are answers and while I understand that it’s the start of a larger series I personally feel it should have offered more in the opening novel rather than only offering enough to leave you curious as to what will happen in future works. The first person novel was well written, but I didn’t feel it was really fulfilling. While DuVall shows a talent for world building I didn’t think there was enough of a plot for this to be a standalone novel. Now with what little taste she’s given us of her world in this novel, I’m certain that this combined with future series world will lead to a stunning series, but as a standalone title in my opinion it falls short.

DuVall did a decent job with building characters. Being in the first person Chalice is obviously well developed. Though some of her actions don’t quite fit with the history and life created for her she does have a nice depth of feeling as well as obvious strength and flaws. She promises to be a very interesting character in the series to come. Aydin was less developed but we definitely got a good sense of him in the novel. Considering his fate at the end I’m not sure if we’ll be offered the opportunity to learn more in future works or not. Gavin was a cross between well developed and one dimensional. While he did come across as a fleshy character, no reasons were offered for his motives and his only real character traits were that he was demented and evil. The thing is no matter how good or bad a person is no one is completely one thing or another and Gavin needs a little bit more to his character though it’s pretty much a given that’s not going to happen. Other characters were given enough to be distinctive from one another but we didn’t really get a sense of knowing them which is common in a first person novel.

Overall I think I’d recommend the book to fantasy readers, but I would probably also advise to wait and get more than one title in the series before reading it since this book more serves as a series introduction than it does a fleshed out and fulfilling novel.

I haven't read many Luna titles, but after this read, I think that the line deserves a little more attention from me. There was less romance than I expected, and Chalice acted more like a teen than a woman in her twenties, but the story held my attention and I thought the world building was interesting. Knight's Curse should appeal to older teens ready to venture out of the YA reading sphere.

I am wavering between 3.5 and 4 stars.

Full review soon at www.mangamaniaccafe.com

I thought Knight's Curse was a decent intro to a UF series. I liked the heroine and the world building. I just wished there was a bit more to it. But hopefully it's sequel will flesh a little more out to it.