Like a Curse book review

Until the release of Keedie, this was the last Elle McNicoll book that I needed to pick up and read, luckily my library has all of her books that I could borrow. I loved A Kind of Spark and Show Us Who You Are and as a massive fantasy reader, I was excited to read Elle McNicoll's fantasy duology which is also set in Scotland. I read Like A Charm and loved it, immediately picking up Like A Curse which I haven't loved as much as I loved Like a Charm but still loved.

The Like a Charm duology follows Ramya Knox who has recently moved back to Edinburgh with her parents, where many members of her family already live. Ramya when in Edinburgh discovers a whole hidden world of magical creatures who hide in plain sight and most people can't see past their magical disguise, but Ramya has that skill. Ramya learns though that things aren't as good as they seem and that someone or something is causing issues for these creatures.

I love Ramya as a character but during this book, I also loved meeting new characters at the same time as seeing more of the characters we had met and grown to love in Like A Charm. Quite often we often learn more about these characters and there is more to them than originally meets the eye and I like discovering these things. There were many characters who I had mixed feelings towards and wasn't sure how I ultimately felt about by the end of the book.

I love the settings of both Loch Ness and Edinburgh and didn't prefer one over the other. It was great to explore Edinburgh though and see many of the places that I knew and visit on a frequent basis. Seeing how Elle McNicoll made these places magical and added to them in the books, things like this included Greyfriars Bobby and looking at the bookshops and seeing if I knew them and had been there before.

I love the magic and creatures scattered throughout the books and it made a great story that I loved and highly recommend. I have loved Elle McNicoll's books no matter the genre and setting, her writing gets me easily hooked and she creates characters that I love and want to support so so much. This duology is no different and I easily rated both books highly. I highly recommend every book I have read by Elle McNicoll and I cannot wait to read more from her, even though I wish I didn't have to wait until October for her next release after Keedie which I suspect I will have finished this weekend.

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