Cursed to Death-L.A. Banks

Cursed to Death
L.A. Banks
St. Martin’s, Sep 29 2009, $7.99
ISBN: 9780312942991

Black Ops agent Sasha Trudeau is a shadow wolf who unlike werewolves can change at any time. She uses the shadows to go to the Shadowlands and from there to any point on earth in an instant. Currently, she and her mate Max Hunter are in New Orleans to attend the Seelie King Sir Rodney’s’s full moon Midsummer Night Ball. Instead of having fun, Sasha investigates the death of a phoenix who after the flame burned out she sayed as ash instead of turningd into a beautiful human woman; her sister died in the same way including the identical black magic signature.

Sasha and Max pick up a sexual wolf scent at the site of the killings, but always lose the trail. A pixie tells them that the glamour of the Fae is faltering and members of the Shadow Wolf Federation sense the dark anomalies negatively affecting them and of course Sasha and Max. The Fae dark sorcery spell is becoming increasingly stronger while seemingly sapping the essence of everyone; if it is not stopped by the ball, war will explode.

The forth crimson Moon urban fantasy (see BAD MOON, BITE THE MOON and UNDEAD ON ARRIVAL) is as strong, evocative and action-packed as its predecessors are. L.A. Banks combines various genres to create a unique paranormal vision that grips readers from the opening corpse and never slows down as the inquiry affirms all hell is coming during the next full moon especially since it appears the vampires, the Unseelie, renegade werewolves and rogue shadow wolves might be temporally uniting to throw over the current order before infighting with one another. Ms. Banks makes each species different but believable as Sasha feels CURSED TO DEATH by all of them.

Harriet Klausner