Okay, so I’m really on the fence about this one. I liked the content and series development in this book more than the last book (A Perilous Undertaking seemed a bit like a side mystery to me and didn’t really advance the series plot that much), but I struggled to get into it at the beginning.

A Treacherous Curse has a compelling enough mystery, but it starts off so slow. After Veronica and Stoker start investigating, the first half of the book is basically just them interviewing people with very little action. If you like getting into the details of trying to get the mystery, you might enjoy it, but I just found it slow and kind of boring. But then in the second half the book really picks up and I ended up enjoying it more than the last book. There’s a lot of action and I thought the actual mystery was super clever.

What I did really like about this book though was the character development. We finally get some of Stoker’s backstory!! The first book is all about Veronica and the second book feels like a bit of a dead weight in terms of character development, but we learn all about Stoker’s history in this book, which I found a lot more engaging. It was the main factor that propelled me through the first half of the book cause I was so enthralled with what happened with Caroline.

But damnit Raybourn, I need some more romance in this series please! I mean, it’s totally clever to draw out the tension between your characters, but I’m a little obsessed with Veronica and Stoker and I need to see a bit more action here!

So overall, 4 star character development, 3 star pacing. Was on the fence if I would continue the series, but I’ve been convinced and just ordered the next two!