Review--Cursed Moon by Jaye Wells

When a rare Blue Moon upsets the magical balance in the city, Detective Kate Prospero and her Magical Enforcement colleagues pitch in to help Babylon PD keep the peace. Between potions going haywire and everyone's emotions running high, every cop in the city is on edge. But the moon's impact is especially strong for Kate who's wrestling with guilt over falling off the magic wagon.

After a rogue wizard steals dangerous potions from the local covens, Kate worries their suspect is building a dirty magic bomb. Her team must find the anarchist rogue before the covens catch him, and make sure they defuse the bomb before the Blue Moon deadline. Failure is never an option, but success will require Kate to come clean about her secrets.

I dove into one of my long waited series to finish for the year, and that was The Prospero’s War trilogy. Cursed Moon is the second installment in Jaye Well’s gritty Urban Fantasy series that is pretty awesome! Cursed Moon reminded me why I love Urban Fantasy so much! It’s dark, gritty, packed with action and paranormal and just a sprinkling of romance that’s just barely there…this is why I love the genre so much! Every moment is filled with something, be it action, tension, scary moments or whatnot…it’s a genre I will always come home to!

Granted my memory of Dirty Magic is nearly nonexistent! I read it so long ago, I can’t remember much. But thankfully, we have a bit of recap going on in the beginning that was enough for me to remember the important details. Kate had just cooked dirty magic a few months ago to save her brother, after a near decade of being clean. And she has John Volos to thank for that. The man she wanted out of her life irrevocably and who just came slamming back into it recently. And there he remains.

In this one, Kate and her partner, Drew Morales are handed what seems to be a simple robbery case. When some serious potions are stolen from Aphrodite’s brothel (to put it kindly), they think it will just be a little bit of chaos to ensue before the upcoming Blue Moon. Which when that happens, there will be even more chaos. But it turns into something far bigger than a simple robbery. The potions were stolen by a madman with a mad plan to cause the ultimate chaos and the deaths of thousands.

Now the clock is ticking and Kate and Drew will have to work fast in order to find the madman before he sets off his plan for mass destruction. This was quite the intense read! Not only was that time bomb ever ticking in the not so distant future, but Kate has to deal with a lot of other issues too. For instance, her best friend, Pen, learns of her cooking dirty magic and it sets off a chain reaction for Pen’s own falling off the wagon. Her brother, Danny, is still a growing teenager and there’s always issues to be had with that. Especially when the lies and going against her rules starts up. And then there’s John Volos once again interfering with her life. I wish I could remember the nit and gritty of their past relationship, or if it was even mentioned in the first book. But basically, moments between them are rife with tension. And not necessarily the romantic kind, though there does seem to be a thin thread of that kind lingering.

The pacing to this one was all right. I will admit that things got a bit slow here and there when we detracted from the main mission, but soon enough those little “side events” started to take a life of their own! I definitely can’t wait to start the next and final book of the series to see where things go. Kate has a new course set for her, and I must say I like what I see. There’s growth! And a few other so not at all bad things happening for her!

While I was never really a big fan of romance, over the years I have come to enjoy some romance in my books that I read. Sadly, it seems, there’s not much of that in this one. But there’s lots of tension, possibly romantic kinds too! I’m not sure which path Kate might follow, though I am hoping for one myself. And yes, we’ve resorted to vagueities. And referring to oneself as we. Guess I have gone a little book crazy over the years! LOL!

If you’re looking for that just right Urban Fantasy read, I would definitely recommend The Prospero’s War trilogy, though do start with the first book, or you might be a little lost and spoiled. And do also check out Jaye’s first series, the Sabina Kane series which is what I like to think of as old school Urban Fantasy, aka it has vampires!! ;)

Overall Rating 4/5 stars