I see Laura Thalassa’s name and I read! No questions asked, so yeah sign me up!

I received a free copy of The Curse that Binds by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

NO SPOILERS!

I read and loved Bewitched and I was in the middle of the second book Bespelled when I got this ARC. It’s a prequel to this story so I dropped everything to read it.

No you don’t need to read Bewitched and Bespelled to understand this book.

Roxilana is hearing voices and thinks she’s going mad but the voice is real and it’s a young boy named Memnon. He tells her they are soul mates with magic abilities. He arrives on her doorstep claiming she’s his wife and takes her to his homeland.

This book definitely has War by Laura Thalassa vibes. There’s tribes, camps, warriors and battles. I loved War so this book was right up my alley. The ending was the perfect bookend to Bewitched and made me want to read that book all over again. I enjoyed seeing Roxi and Memnon’s past life and how everything unfolded in more detail.

The story was a bit too long in places and some scenes could have been cut, but I’m okay with it.

Laura Thalassa weaves beauty and magic in all her books. Her characters are fleshed out and her world building is insane. I can’t praise this book enough.

It was enlightening to learn more about why everyone is as damaged as they are, especially Memnon's brutality, but after a while it felt a bit repetitive. I really wanted to love this but wound up skimming from about 40% to the end. I think I would have enjoyed it more as a novella. Still a recommended read for fans of the series, and I will happily pre-order the next when it's available.

What an absolutely beautiful, tragic love story. While it’s true that if you’ve read Bewitched and Bespelled, you know how this chapter in their story ends, you don’t REALLY know until you get through The Curse That Binds. (And I see you there, Laura, at the very end 👀)
Getting to experience Roxi and Memnon from young friends to eventually lovers helped add so much depth to their characters and story and created a visceral understanding of why Memnon is the way he is.
Whether you read this first or third, it more than deserves its place in the series and the level of detail and research Laura put into this book really shines through and will delight any fellow history lovers.

If I could give this book 10 stars, I would. The Curse that Binds was absolute perfection. It's tragic and bittersweet and so so beautiful. I seriously can't recommend it enough, whether you've read the Bewitched series or not. This prequel story is viscerally moving and heartbreaking and the most beautiful and tragic love story I've read in a long time. I'm so very glad it isn't the end of Memnon & Roxilana, more like their beginning, still my heart hurts and I'm going to go reread Bewitched and Bespelled now. And when I tell you the research that went into this book is insane, it really is. You can tell Laura poured her entire self into it. Anyway, please go read it when it releases. Even if you're new to the series. I promise, it's worth it.

What a joy it was to read Memnon & Roxilana’s story! We know about Selene in Bewitched & Bespelled, but we truly got to know the real her in this book. There is a certain villian in Bespelled that we caught a glimpse of, and it was interesting to learn this villains motives in The Curse That Binds.

I feel Laura really put in the effort of detailing the brutal ways of the Roman Empire. You learn more of the Samaritan culture as well.

Everything was detailed perfectly. And I really enjoyed the intimacy between Memnon & Roxilana.