The Cursed Key by Miranda Brock & Rebecca Hamilton

The Cursed Key
Miranda Brock & Rebecca Hamilton
(The Cursed Key Trilogy #1)
Published by: Evershade Publishing
Publication date: January 14th 2020
Genres: New Adult, Romance, Urban Fantasy

A forgotten past, a dark mage, and an unyielding curse.

Another team beat free-spirited archaeologist Olivia Perez to the dig of a lifetime, and now she’s left with the choice to wait for scraps or brave a dangerous, dusty tomb in hopes of finding other priceless artifacts. Her reward? A mysterious key she has no idea is cursed. Soon, Olivia realizes she’s brought home more than just an ancient rarity.

Malevolent visions begin to plague her. Unnerved by what they reveal, she casts away the key…unknowingly placing it into the waiting hands of a dark mage bent on destruction. Only when a shifter agent from the Paranormal Intelligence and Tracking Organization arrives searching for the key does Olivia realize what a huge mistake she’s made.

Forced to team up with the ill-tempered shifter, her journey to reclaim the cursed key leads down a twisting path of dark histories, dangerous magic, and deadly obstacles. But Olivia’s efforts to take back the ancient relic before the dark mage can destroy the lives of humans, shifters, witches, and fae alike are thwarted by her own dark past…and a price steeper than what she’s willing to pay.

Fans of Tomb Raider and Ilona Andrews will love the blend of urban fantasy, magical adventure, and paranormal romance in THE CURSED KEY from Miranda Brock and New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Hamilton!

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Author Bio:

New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Hamilton writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance for Harlequin, Baste Lübbe, and Evershade. A book addict, registered bone marrow donor, and indian food enthusiast, she often takes to fictional worlds to see what perilous situations her characters will find themselves in next.

Represented by Rossano Trentin of TZLA, Rebecca has been published internationally, in three languages: English, German, and Hungarian.

Author links:
Website / Facebook / Twitter

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From an early age Miranda Brock has always loved fantasy and adventure everything. Since she doesn’t live in a world of enchanting powers, mythical beasts, and things unbelievable she has decided to write about them. (Although, if you happen to see a dragon flying around, do tell her.) Born in southern Illinois, where she still resides with her husband and two children, she grew up running through the woods, playing in creeks, and riding horses. What started out as writing poetry grew into short stories and eventually led to her first novel, Souls Discovered. Miranda lives in the country where she finds inspiration in the simplicity and beauty around her. With the help of a ridiculous amount of coffee and some good music she writes whenever she gets a chance.

Author links:
Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter

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The Cursed Key – Review

🍸🍸🍸1/2

The Cursed Key is, honestly, a fun adventure story. If you like Indiana Jones, you’ll love The Cursed Key. As I read the book, I kept imagining the little map in the Indiana Jones movie, plotting the course of their adventure in one of those 1930s airplanes. The heroine is a brash “archaeologist” fighting with a rival at the beginning of the book. She works in academia, lives in her exalted father’s shadow, and gets pulled into something that is well beyond any dig she’s ever been on before.

And in a lot of ways The Cursed Key is a thousand times better than Indiana Jones. There are no sexual aspects that ring weird and problematic to me now, as an adult living in 2020, the way Indy’s sexcapades make me cringe now. Olivia is at least of Brazilian extraction, so I’m not cringing quite as much at some of the theft as I am in Indiana Jones. (More on that below, I promise.)  Olivia is the main character, so she is strong and she’s capable and she’s a smartass – everything I enjoy in life. And while Kael can be a pain in the ass, he’s not plagued by toxic masculinity. He’s refreshing and sometimes even fun.

So on the whole, I enjoyed this book.

Here’s where it fell apart for me, and I’ll admit it’s kind of a niche thing to get picky about. Olivia, the main character, is an archaeologist. My undergrad major was archaeology – I have been an archaeologist. What Olivia is doing in the course of this story is not archaeology. What she is doing is treasure hunting. And it’s gross.

Indiana Jones is a treasure hunter too, but a) archaeology during his period was a lot less scientific and a lot more about glamor (although that was changing, and b) he is at least depicted as teaching classes and having some connection to teaching, learning, whatever. Olivia… doesn’t. She’s at Yale, but she’s there as her father’s heir and instead of being pressured to publish or perish she’s being pressured to find a bright shiny object or get fired.

Er… no. Archaeology doesn’t work like that. A modern archaeological dig doesn’t work anything like what’s depicted in the opening pages. A modern archaeological dig is boring. You’re in the dirt, sifting through an unholy mess to try to find one tiny detail that might tell you something about who lived there centuries ago.

There might be running, if your dig has turned into a war zone. This has happened to a professor of mine – but there still wasn’t gold, the booby traps are more likely to be land mines from recent activity than left behind by a Super Secret Ancient Curse, and any gold idols were probably looted a hundred years ago.

I was on a project once – we couldn’t call it a dig because it was in a cemetery – that involved taking soil samples. We were literally looking for a change in the color of the dirt. The change in the color of the dirt would be a significant find, and change what we knew about colonial American history, but it was about the color of the dirt. The only running happened when it rained.

So that part bothered me, a lot, and it made it hard for me to take Olivia seriously. At the same time, it’s hard to make an adventure out of a real archaeological dig. I’ve tried. (Those stories will never see the light of day. Because they’re boring.) So, I understand why this choice was made, but there was still a huge part of me screaming Nothing works like that!

I know medical professionals who can’t read or watch anything involving surgery or emergency care, for the same reasons.

The Cursed Key was still a thoroughly enjoyable adventure with two likeable lead characters. I can honestly say you’ll enjoy this.