✨ Urban Fantasy Romance
✨ Witches and Wolves
✨ Millenia Old Curses
✨ Revenge
✨ Soul Mates
✨ Morally Grey MMC
✨ Amazing Banter
✨ Unsolved Murders
✨ Cliffy

Selene wants nothing more than to join the Henebane Coven, an academy for young witches. In order for her to join, the Coven tells her she needs to 1) connect with her power with a magical quest and 2) get a familiar. During an alcohol infused night, she books a trip to South America for her quest. En route a dark supernatural force tries to drag her plane from the sky but Selene is able to thwart the crash when her magic awakens - all at a cost. As she navigates the jungle to find the source of the attack, she stumbles upon ancient ruins and awakens an ancient evil, Memnon the Cursed, who believes Selene is his long-dead wife. The wife who betrayed him. She is able to escape Memnon and head back to Henebane where she starts her witch studies. Shortly after her arrival back home, Memnon finds her and a string of murders begins.

I love everything Laura Thalassa writes and she is an auto buy author for me! Laura’s amazing storytelling capabilities had me entranced with this book and I couldn’t put it down! I was definitely “bewitched” by this book!

Selene is so relatable and I absolutely loved her! Her thoughts and actions are definitely something I would do and say. Memnon is 🥵. He’s obsessed with Selene in an almost stalkerish way but he also thinks she’s his wife who cursed him and wants his revenge so you can’t really fault him much. I love that he is still infatuated with his wife after all these years yet is also conflicted in his thoughts and feelings. Their chemistry together is off the charts. 🔥 I can’t wait to read more about their evolving relationship, Nero (Selene’s new panther familiar), and find out what is happening with all the unsolved murders.

This book ends on a cliffhanger and I’ll be eagerly awaiting the next one! Thank you to @netgalley and @read_bloom for the advanced copy! It’s out now and on KU❤️

“Power is to be celebrated and feared. You have it in spades, but it is locked away. Find the key and use it. Don’t be a pawn when you’re a queen. No one commands a queen.”

Am I rooting for the villain? Again? Am I the problem? No, I’m not the problem. Or am I? No, he will have some kind of redeeming story, I’m positive. But why don’t I care if it doesn’t? Ah, it’s me. I’m the problem. Oh well. Whatever. I sleep just fine either way.

This was one of the most refreshing books with witches and curses I’ve read in a long time. Fun; upbeat, 🥵, and I didn’t even mind Kane 👀 Please and thank you!

Laura Thalassa has more than proven her ability to offer us truly terrible MMC and have us worshiping the ground they step on. So, being all for Memnon is not surprising at all 🙈 But I never expected to have THIS MUCH fun reading a story on 2000 years old curses. Wow this was BRILLIANT 🤌🏼

And I loved — LOVED — how kick*ss Selene was. While others saw her condition as a limitation, she always thought of it as just a part of who she is. Not the whole. Not even her biggest part. It was just something she had to finds ways to deal with and overcome it.

There’s still much we don’t know, questions to which we need answers. But that ending sure does make me crave book 2 🤌🏼

What’s inside:
🖤witch fantasy romance
🖤same world as the Bargainer series
🖤enemies to lovers — kind of, it’s complicated
🖤stay with me
🖤who did this to you?
🖤don’t touch what’s mine
🖤fated mates
🖤dark academia
🖤m*rder mystery

Adult. 5 stars ⭐️ Thank you so much @netgalley @read_bloom and @laurathalassa for this eARC.

A fantastic start to a new series from Laura Thalassa and it’s a tale of curses, soul mates and past lives. Of a remote crypt containing a powerful being, locked away for eternity and the girl who unwittingly releases him on the world once again.

All Selene Bowers wants is to join the Henbane coven, an academy for witches even though every time she uses her magic, another of her memories vanishes for ever. One of the requirements for her admittance is she finds her familiar so she sets off on an adventure to find one. Cue ensuing paranormal forces, plane crashes, treks through a jungle and hidden tombs protected by wards and I was hooked, furiously powering my way through Bewitched desperate to find out what was going to happen next. Throw in a mysterious villain in Memnon (I’m not calling him the hero because I’m on the fence about his true intentions) who can invade your mind and beckon you to ‘come to him’ in a very vampirish like mind control and who is more than a little mercurial in whether he loves or hates you, this story has everything I love in a book. And to add to all that goodness once Selene takes her place at the coven, there’s a series of murders and events conspire to make her the prime suspect, all while she’s being stalked by the newly awakened Memnon. Did I mention that there are shifters as well? This book can’t possibly get any better!

❤️‍🔥 happy pub day ❤️‍🔥

Book: Bewitched
By: @laurathalassa 🖤

GOOD THINGS CHECKLIST:

✔️ paranormal romance!! think witches, mages, & werewolves

✔️ A PET PANTHER (& he is sassy) 🐈‍⬛

✔️ FMC is a witch trying to get into an exclusive coven BUT using her powers causes her to lose memories 🤯

✔️ dark, angsty, insanely powerful MMC looking for revenge on who cursed him

✔️ the most gripping love/hate relationship, throw in some spice, and stir it all up with some mystery and potential mistaken identity?? 😩 I WAS HOOKED

✔️ first in a new series and OH BABY I'll be needing book 2 ASAP because this one was just tooooo good

available TODAY!! & it's on KU for all my kindle babes out there 🥰 shout-out to @read_bloom and @netgalley for the advanced copy!

What a great first in series. I've seen a lot of Laura's books but, never got the chance to read them and I'm so glad that I read this book. This book was so wonderfully told and I can't wait to read more books by Laura.

I was expected a light fantasy romance, but I got way more than that and I really really like it. Overall it's an entertaining captivating adult fantasy romance read for me.

It's a complex fantasy romance with lots of angst and enemies to lovers trope (one of my fav tropes) and there's a dash of mythology here and there. Love the magic, it's our world but magic, witches, werewolves is common, although normal people still kinda unfamiliar with the magic, it's like there's separate places between normal human and magical creatures, they're just coexist.
This book really brings all the feelings for me, I can feel the frustration, the desperation, the anger, the sadness and the steaminess really got me squirming.

As for characters, I love Selene a witch with unique power and a panther as a familiar, yups this one is a badass character. Then there's Memnon, for now I hate this A**hole, at first I thought okay, he's a sexy king but and who doesn't love a sexy handsome cunning King, but the more I read gah this King really an A**, but hey let's see in the next book, if this king can redeemed himself.

If you're looking for a steamy entertaining fantasy romance with enemies to lovers trope, this one is perfect for you.

You want an awesome dark fantasy romance novel full of witches, curses, and an ancient warlord sorcerer that manages to bespell a vulnerable witch into opening his well-hidden and buried sarcophagus and lifting a 2,000 year old curse? You want that sorcerer to be sexier than sin, possessive like a barbarian, Machievellian and vengeful, and yet still have space in his dark heart to truly care for you?

Oh yeah, you’re going to absolutely love Bewitched.

Laura Thalassa is absolutely a reliable author of the character-driven dark fantasy romance novel. Her men aren’t good men–they’re definitely callous and unemotional to start out with and surely strung along the darker shades of the greyscale. Her women are feisty and often out of their element with their male love interest to start off with: a little lust drunk, unsettled by their power and mood swings, and yet they learn somewhere along the way how much power they hold both as women and as lovers.

This first installment in this series is heavy on exposition, to be sure, but the characterizations of Memnoch and Selene don’t suffer for it. If anything, the exposition helps to fill these characters out, to help us understand Memnoch’s motivations, goals, and experiences, and to also help us get a glimpse into Selene’s anger, frustration, weaknesses, and strengths. In essence, Thalassa wields exposition in the manner it’s meant to be wielded: showing us instead of merely telling us.

There is a lot of magic flying around in this book, and while there is a nominal effort made to explain the magic system, I still found myself a touch confused at times. I’m going to chalk it up to this being the first installment and there was so much going on in this book that it’s likely we’ll learn more and more about the magic in this series as it moves on.

There is also a lot of plot running around. Besides the main plot between Memnoch and Selene, there’s also two (maybe even three?) subplots running under the surface that keep the pacing flowing nice and steady, waiting there to mix it up so us readers aren’t simply sitting here reading your standard romance novel. There’s some heft to it. Some pizzazz. It’s simply a great read and a great win for Thalassa under her new imprint.

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. Any thoughts, views, ideas, or opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: 5 Star Read/Fantasy Romance/Romantic Fantasy/Paranormal Fantasy/Urban Fantasy/Dark Fantasy/Fantasy Series/Book Series/Romance Series/Contemporary Romance/Dark Romance/Paranormal Romance/Spice Level 2

Believe the hype, this book was worth every page. Bewitched is a wonderful witchy Romantasy with a morally gray MMC that is quite literally willing to burn everything down in order to be with the FMC. I was truly rooting for Selena the FMC throughout her journey in this book, but I have to say my favorite character is her familiar. I can’t wait to see what happens next in this magical world.

This was one of my anticipated reads for 2023. Wish I could say that I loved Bewitched but sadly this didn’t work for me. No ill intended, all just my opinion. The writing was fine but the language style didn’t seem to match up with the modern day setting.

Anyway, I’ll keep it spoiler free as possible.

Selene is a young witch trying to attend the coven of her dreams. Her powers are among the rare sort, as the use of magic comes with a cost. This being her memories. After her first rejection and a possible second, Selene takes a trip on a new magical quest in hopes to accomplish a nearly impossible task. Unable to remember why she choose her particular destination, events start happening that leads Selene to awakening the cursed sorcerer called Memnon. From then on there’s a dynamic playing out between Selene and Memnon throughout the book, but sporadically. More about that below.

The heroine was kind of hard to read, Selene is overly stubborn and quite naive when it comes to common sense. She makes many silly decisions because she believes others will see her magic as weak. So she doesn’t look or ask for help til she’s desperate for it. Some of her decisions I understand but not others.

The hero, Memnon, has the whole possessive-ish alpha male vibe which I do like in the books I read. He’s also has this obsession in wanting Selene’s acceptance as his wife. For a being that has been cursed into a sleep for many many years, he has acclimated to modern times rather quickly. Some how. Sadly we don’t get enough time with him as a lot of the contact with Selene is through a mind connection until we get more towards the last quarter-ish.

The dynamic between Selene and Memnon is simply based on this distant feeling she gets when he’s near over anything else. The heroine has a hot and cold thing going on. She’s her normal self when it’s just her but then she’s lost to sudden attraction when they’re face to face. Those times all seem to play out much the same for a good chunk of the book.

The romance was definitely lacking for me. It’s more with following Selene and her coven experience and the mystery surrounding the nature of dead witches. Then the romance comes through. I had a hard time understanding that. There’s some cursed man who followed you back. One that believes she’s his wife, separated for a few thousand years. I doubt he’d give her much room to breathe as he did. Even if he was scheming, I would think he’d want her under his thumb more.

I must say I was terribly excited to read this book because this author is widely known to write gripping urban fantasy romances. She did not disappoint. This story was exciting from page one. We are aware of witches, sorcerers, and shifters so far. The idea of the FMC losing bits of her memory whenever she used a lot of her magic is intriguing and adds to the tension. The first-person POV enhanced the book's premise and added to the reader's experience as we experienced what our FMC experienced as she tried to catch up to what she was forgetting. (That sentence sums up my enjoyment while reading this book.) It actually was very trippy at times. I loved it.

The puzzle only gets more fragmented as we move through the book; we are given snippets of the potential of Selene's power. It's proving to be more than she ever knew. But did she at one time know this but forgot? It's all such a puzzle. Memnon adds more facets to the puzzle. He's obviously still very attached to her, but what happened? Is she Roxilana? Or maybe a descendant? Who knows? We have not even touched on the murder mystery. Then we're left with a delicious cliffhanger and tons of unanswered questions. A fascinating mystery is being woven, and I am here for it.

I need the next part now, I don't know how I'm going to cope with the anxiety because this book left me on the edge of everything
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Laura Thalassa knows how to make me addicted to her characters and their story. I want to know more about Selene, about Memnon, about all her characters, I need to know more about everything!
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There was a moment of doubt in which I did not understand if it was a story of soul mates and destiny or of wizardry, but then the werewolves appear and with supernatural human beings that twilight mix between of Jacob vs. Edward is created, and I understood that it is all that and more
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Selene is a young witch who all her life wanted to enter this school/ college, that is like a coven of whizardy, that her best friend is part. But every time again she is rejected by the council as she has a rare condition that causes her to lose her memories
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But due to a strange event, the council decides to admit her if she gets a familiar, an animal-shaped spirit guide on whom she can lean and achieve a magical mission of her choice
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Selene ends up discovering an ancient tomb near Peru, with a sarcophagus where its occupant seems asleep and without understanding why his body reacts to it, ends up waking him up
.
Memnon has just woken up in this world two hundred years later and believes that Selene is his wife, his queen and even worse that she is the one who betrayed him and locked him up all this time
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Just as Selene begins to settle into the coven, a murderer begins killing witches and leaving them in his wake and this ancient king re appears when she least expects it vowing revenge
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This book has everything, mystery, love triangle, challenges and destiny with spicy scenes and the promise that you will not be able to stop reading
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I really enjoyed reading and unraveling this plot, every time they touched on the subject I wanted to hear more about this ancient civilization and especially about the history of this ancient king and his mistery tomb. I'm so intrigued about how this story is going to continue, how Selene, after this ending, acts. I'm so here for it and I'm going to be aware of every sneak about it
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Thanks to Laura Thalassa and Sourcebooks bloom books for give me a copy of this beautiful book in exchange for my honest and voluntary opinion

This is fantastic, I don’t think I’ve read a book by Laura Thalassa that I haven’t been addicted to. Although I will say I’m unhappy with that cliffhanger, just because I need book 2 now and I don’t have it, I’m so impatient. This was everything I hoped for and more, strong female lead, an antihero who develops across the book and you want to hear more from, dark and very interesting romance, I can’t recommend this enough, if you’ve read Laura’s books before you’ll want to read this so bad, if you haven’t what are you waiting for


I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Bewitched is a captivating tale that pulled me into a world of enchantment and destined love. The narrative is crafted in a manner that entices one to continue reading, making it a true page-turner. This magical read is impossible to put down.

Lauren Thalassa has absolutely created an amazing novel that is sure to fly off of the shelves. Everything from the romance, to the plot and overall story was absolutely incredible. I cannot wait to see what she writes next!

Thank you to the Publisher and the Author for providing me with the ARC.

Bewitched is one of my top favorite books for the year 2023. Ever since I'd seen this book on Laura's social media, I wanted to get my hands on it, like, real bad. And when I found it on NetGalley, I HAD TO HAVE IT.

Bewitched is a paranormal romance and the first in the series, featuring a strong heroine, a hero hell-bent on revenge, and a dark and twisted romantic tale, full of suspense.

Laura Thalassa's writing style has a way of pulling you in and keeping you hooked till you reach the end. The story is very unique, The plot and the characters' storyline are developed so well, it kept me on my toes, questioning every action and motive, and the twist in the story at the end!

Selene is a witch, looking to join Henbane Coven, an academy for witches. She's asked to do some tasks after which she would be admitted to the coven. I found Selene to be a really interesting character, The cost of her magic is her memories - every time she casts magic, she loses a random memory. This intrigued me because I wondered how that would come into play, especially when dealing with the anti-hero.

Selene takes up the assignments, which leads her to unlock an ancient being called Memnon. Memnon mistakes her for his wife who has betrayed him and swears to take revenge on her and possess her.

Of course, Selene fights back (or tries to), and therein lies the entire story--which you honestly need to experience for yourself.

Talking about Memnon, OH BOY. Memnon's the classic anti-hero, you'll love to hate and hate to love. You'll doubt his motives, fall for him, hate him, and be intrigued by him. He elicits so many emotions. And with the book in the heroine's POV, you're riding that rollercoaster of emotions and thrill.

Memnon is obsessed with Selene, he believes she was the one who cursed him in their past life and wants her back BUT at the same time wants to take revenge.

Their relationship is FIRE. Selene is scared of him, but she can't deny the connection between the two. And Memnon is all about her - and that's one of my favorite tropes (boy obsessed).

This book is a wild ride to the magical dark side. It is captivating, thrilling, addictive, and leaves you wanting more and more.

I can't wait for Book 2.

I love this. I can't say it enough. I went into this with high hopes because I adore this author. I was not disappointed. The FMC is relatable, and I LOVE that the world they live in makes it so magic comes with a price. I am weak for enemies to lovers, and i adored that this went back to enemies. Slow burns can be frustrating at times, but not this. I loved this. This was wonderful and I can't recommend this enough.

I've really enjoyed the two Laura Thalassa series I've read so far - they're dark, sexy, and engrossing - so I was super excited to receive an ARC of Bewitched and I wasn't disappointed!

Synopsis: Selene is a witch whose power manifests in a very unusual way - whenever she uses her magic, it eats up some of her memories. She's desperate to be accepted into a coven/witch's school but they are hesitant to take her on, suggesting that she should first find an animal familiar and also go on a magical quest through the wilderness. Selene wakes one morning and finds that she has booked a trip to the Galapagos (and has no memory of doing so) for her quest, and while she is on the plane she hears a magical voice calling to her and feels a power pulling down the plane.

Selene uses her magic to safely land the plane but the voice is still calling to her. She follows it through the jungle until she finds a crypt, where she finds who has been calling her and awakens Memnon, an ancient warrior whose wife Roxilana put a curse on him...and he thinks that Selene is Roxilana.

Memnon follows Selene back to the school, where he continues to insist that she is his wife, whom he once loved but now hates for cursing him, and that she has just lost the memories of the truth. To make matters worse, there is a string of murders occurring on campus, and when the police start to look at Selene, her memory issues make her seem like a possible suspect...

Review: This book was so enchanting, the magical world of witches, sorcerers, and shifters was so interesting and not difficult to understand. I really liked Selene's character. Despite the issues her magic causes for her, she is desperate to be part of the coven community and to use her powers, having developed a system to try to write everything down and be able to keep her memories as much as possible.

Memnon of course was SUPER HOT and dark and surly. He obviously loves his wife Roxilana but is incredibly pissed at her for cursing him and is vowing to get his revenge, and those warring feelings make him hot and cold with Selene. It's sexy and frustrating and I loved it. I will say that there wasn't a ton of spice in this book but the couple of spicy scenes were super hot! I think the next book in the series will be amped up for sure.

The mystery around what is happening on campus and who is responsible for the deaths was interesting but I felt like it wasn't quite developed enough to fully keep my attention - I was definitely more focused on Selene and Memnon's relationship and whether or not she was really Roxilana. The mysterious deaths and magic felt a bit slowly developed but hopefully things will become clearer in the next book! I think this book was good at getting everything with the different storylines set up and I think things will be a bit faster paced in the next book, we definitely were left on a cliffhanger and I can't wait to see what happens next!

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloom Books for this ARC!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.
I was so looking forward for this book and it delivered. I really enjoyed it. I loved Selene as a character and the premise is so interesting. As for Memnon I'm conflicted. For the most part I liked him as a character but then I think he got a bit to far with his actions so I'm not sure how everything will resolve and how Selene will be able to forgive him. We didn't really get any answers and that ending killed me. It's going to be an agony waiting for the next book

I really loved the idea behind this and the story in this book. I think it is a good first book to a promising series. Selene, a witch, unfortunately loses her memories in exchange for using her powers. Because everything has a cost when it comes to magic. With that, she is having a difficult time getting accepted into a coven so she takes a trip to find the things that the coven asked her to submit to be accepted in. In this journey, she awakens Memnon, a cursed sorcerer who has been asleep for thousands of years. Once awakened, he believes Selene is his long lost wife who cursed him to his long sleep and now he wants revenge. The story takes off from there with other things going on throughout the book with the romance subplot. This book is slooooww burn, like real slow burn with enemies to lovers to enemies (which i loved). I thought that Selene is such a fun FMC that you like from the start. Memnon is a broody man who instantly has you falling for him, he is also such a good MMC. And when i like the two main characters, I know I am going to enjoy the book and the series going forward. After reading this book, I am very excited for the next one!! I can't wait.

Bewitched by Laura Thalassa is a fantasy romance novel with a subplot of mystery about witches. Our main character is Selene who is a witch working to get accepted at Henbane coven which is a school for witches. Selene has never wanted anything more than to be accepted at Henbane. The only issue is that every time she uses magic, she loses a memory. The more magic she uses, the more memories she loses. Henbane sees this as a problem and tell Selene she needs to complete a magical quest and find a familiar before they will accept her. That is how Selene finds herself on a plane to South America. During her flight she hears a voice in her head and magic seeping through the plane. The next thing she knows, the plane is crashing in the rainforest. This is where the voice draws her to a tomb and she awakens the sorcerer Memnon and finds her familiar in the rainforest. Memnon follows her back to Henbane and thinks she is his long dead wife.
The first thing I have to say about this book is that it would be a great fall/Halloween read. There are lots of spells, potion making, and overall witchy vibes that put me in a fall mood. The romance between Selene and Memnon was also different from anything I have read before. Memnon is convinced Selene is his wife from 2,000 years ago who put him in that tomb. Selene is constantly telling him that there is no way she is his wife Roxilana. However, Selene can't deny the magical connection she feels with him. Memnon basically ends up stalking Selene and is extremely posessive. You can expect things like "touch her and you die" and "who did this to you" which are always great tropes to see. I also enjoyed how Selene's memory loss was written. You would see her experience something at one part in the book and later on see her surprised to hear about it because shes forgotten. These details made everything more realistic. I also really enjoyed Selene's familair who is a panther. Usually familiars are something basic like a house cat and the panther was a surprise that I loved. The only thing I did not love about this book was how spells were cast. In this world, the witches make up a rhyme to do a spell. To me, this just seemed really juvenile in an adult fantasy book. It reminded me of something I would see on a kids TV show and that was cringy to me. The last thing I will say is to beware of the synopsis of this book. I read it and saw something that did not happen until the very end of the book. It would have been a good plot twist if I did not already see it in the synopsis. Overall, this was a fun and enjoyable fantsay that was easily digestible and I highly recommend it. I am now on the lookout for details of the second book since this does end on a cliffhanger.
Thanks to NetGalley and Bloom Books for the ARC in exchange for a review!