Series: Curse Workers

Synopsis:

In a world where Magic is illegal.

Cassel Sharpe has the most deadly ability of all. With one touch, he can transform any object - including a person - into something else entirely. And that makes him a wanted man. The Feds are willing to forgive all his past crimes if he'll only leave his con artist family behind and go straight. But why does going straight feel so crooked?

For one thing, it means being on the opposite side of the law from Lila, the girl he loves. She's the daughter of a mob boss and getting ready to join the family business herself. Though Cassel is pretty sure she can never love him back, he can't stop obsessing over her. Which would be bad enough, even if her father wasn't keeping Cassel's mother prisoner in a posh apartment and threatening not to let her leave until she returns the priceless diamond she scammed off him years ago. Too bad she can't remember where she put it.

The Feds say they need Cassel to get rid of a powerful man who is spinning dangerously out of control. But if they want Cassel to use his unique talent to hurt people, what separates the good guys from the bad ones? Or is everyone just out to con him?

Time is running out, and all Cassel's magic and cleverness might not be enough to save him. With no easy answers and no one he can trust, love might be the most dangerous gamble of all.

Girls like her, my grandfather once warned me, girls like her turn into women with eyes like bullet holes and mouths made of knives. They are always restless. They are always hungry. They are bad news. They will drink you down like a shot of whisky. Falling in love with them is like falling down a flight of stairs.What no one told me, with all those warnings, is that even after you’ve fallen, even after you know how painful it is, you’d still get in line to do it again.

Awwwwwwww!! I cannot believe how perfectly perfect that ended. I really wanted to write this super long review and make it an absolutely amazing ending to my reading spree of this series but…I dunno. It kind of feels right to just put down a few quotes and call it a day. After all, I don’t want to beat a dead horse, right?

A few closing thoughts:

–Cassel is unbelievably, undeniably, without even the slightest doubt the cutest conman ever. Loyal, in love, terrified to make the wrong decision….and utterly hopeless. I would follow his story anywhere-he’s adorable.

“I thought you wanted us to be good guys.” He grins a too-wide grin. He’s enjoying needling me, and my reacting only makes it worse, but I can’t stop.
“Not if it means hurting her,” I say, my voice as deadly as I can make it. “Never her.”

–The perilistically (my new word, you like?) pleasing ending. WOW. I did NOT expect that. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move, I was paralyzed because of how scared I was for Cassel. I couldn’t see any possible positive outcomes for my favorite little liar at the end of this one.

If I have to die tomorrow when the Feds come for me, then this is the last request of my heart. This. The sight of her lashes brushing her cheek as her eyes flutter closed. The pulse in her throat. Her breath in my mouth. This.

–Cassel…oooohhh errrr awkward….But wait! His heroic actions were amazing and they made me fall in love with him even more. I’m utterly obsessed with him, the unreliable little shit.

I think of not knowing what compelled me to strike a gun out of the hand of a killer. Of how satisfying it was to hit Kevin. Of how I want to do it again and again, want to feel the bones snap and blood smear. Of how it felt to stand over him, my skin on fire with rage.

–The Romance. Ahhhh not much to say, but can I just express my undying shipping of Lila and Cassel?? ‘Cuz I caaan’t stooooop, I wooon’t stooooop… Hmmmm….anyway….

I love love LOVED this installment and I am so sad it’s all over. It’s beyond depressing that I will never read about Cassel and his fucked up life again. I put my Ipad down last night and felt a pang of sadness after I finished this story because I was smiling so big and so overwhelmed with happiness and it was just over. But it ended where it should have and all is right in the world. I won’t mess with that. I am so glad I picked up this random series, because it was amazing and so unlike anything I’d ever read. I will never forget it and I hope you give it a chance, too. 🙂

Now I know why people are afraid of transformation workers. Now I know why they want to control me. Now I get it.
I can walk into someone’s house, kiss their wife, sit down at their table, and eat their dinner. I can lift a passport at an airport, and in twenty minutes it will seem like it’s mine. I can be a blackbird staring in the window. I can be a cat creeping along a ledge. I can go anywhere I want and do the worst things I can imagine, with nothing to ever connect me to those crimes. Today I might look like me, but tomorrow I could look like you. I could be you.

Synopsis:

The cons get craftier and the stakes rise ever higher in the riveting sequel toWhite Cat.

After rescuing his brothers from Zacharov’s retribution, Cassel is trying to reestablish some kind of normalcy in his life.

That was never going to be easy for someone from a worker family that’s tied to one of the big crime families—and whose mother’s cons get more reckless by the day. But Cassel is coming to terms with what it means to be a worker, and he’s figuring out how to have friends.

Except normal doesn’t last very long. Soon Cassel is being courted by both sides of the law and is forced to confront his past—a past he remembers only in scattered fragments, and one that could destroy his family and his future. Cassel will have to decide whose side he wants to be on, because neutrality is not an option. And then he will have to pull off his biggest con ever to survive….

The smell of Lila’s skin, the way her eyes shine with mischief, the low rasp of her voice. It hurts to think of her, but I can’t stop. It ought to hurt.

After all, hell is supposed to be hot.

Hmmm. Well, I just have to say it-If you, for whatever reason, have to put a book on pause and you come back to it and feel like you are still strongly a part of that book’s world…then you have an excellent book in your hands, folks. I have had a busy few weeks, book wise. Blog tours, catching up on a favorite series for said blog tours, keeping up with ARCs…and now here I am with a little bit of ‘me’ time on my hands. So why not pick up where I left off in this wonderful little story?? It was so much easier than I ever expected and I didn’t once feel like I didn’t know what was going on. It’s such a fun, wonderful, dark story with loads of heart seeped onto every page-you can’t help but to fall in love with Cassel and all his shenanigans.

I jump up and take off toward her, yanking the panty hose down over my face. That slows me down some, because there is no way in hell these things are sheer. I can barely see.
People start yelling. Yeah, because a guy with hose over his head is never the good guy. He is, in fact, the stereotype-maybe even a archetype-of a bad guy.

I can’t say this was better than the first, yet I rated it a solid 5. Why is that??? I think it’s because my enjoyment level skyrocketed after my hiatus from the series. As soon as I began to read from where I’d left off, my mood was instantly uplifted and I felt a sense of peace and contentment. I started to laugh and smile like a deranged loon. Reading about Cassel never gets old and certainly never gets boring. He’s a sweethearted con who only wants to do good…but always ends up doing bad. But he’s getting better! Or, at least, he’s trying to.

I wonder if that’s my future. Bad choices. It certainly feels a lot like my present.

And that’s where we are in this book. Something terrible has happened in the first book. (view spoiler)[ Cassel’s mother worked Lila, the girl he has loved all his life, so that she would fall in love with him. (hide spoiler)] Which means that no matter how tangible, how wonderful, how real it seems…it isn’t. It’s a con. And there lays the dilemma: How can Cassel possibly fight the one good thing he’s wanted his whole life?? It’s right there on a silver platter….All he has to do is reach out and take it. But he can’t. He won’t. And that’s why he is, ultimately, good. It wouldn’t be right and it wouldn’t be fair, but it’s sure hard to fight.

I should stop, but there’s no point in stopping. Because I’m not strong enough-eventually, I won’t stop.
I thought the question was “Will I or won’t I?”
But that’s not the question at all.
It’s “When?”
Because I will.
It’s just a matter of time. It’s now.

That’s why this book is so so heartbreaking. I love Cassel. He’s smart, he’s funny, he’s sarcastic, and he just wants to be accepted for who he is. And I love him for it. He has lived a fucked up life surrounded by fucked up people, yet he tries to stay above it. And, more than that, he would do anything for them. He’d cover up any number of their crimes just because he loves them. Yet, they still try to hold him under their thumb even though he’s 50 times more powerful than they’ll ever be. It tore me to pieces each and every time he would resist (view spoiler)[Lila’s advances and her declarations of love for him (hide spoiler)] because how could that ever really be true?? How could (view spoiler)[anyone truly love him? (hide spoiler)] It broke my heart.

At the window to my room, I catch my reflection in the glass. Shaggy black hair. Sneer. I look like a hungry ghost, glowering at the world I am no longer fit to be part of.

The relationships formed in this book were probably my favorite part-it was so heartwarming to see Cassel embrace his new friendships he began to form at the end of the last book and to begin to trust them enough to accept their help. But, then the writing is a close second favorite thing about this story. Black’s writing leaps off the page and sucks you in so you don’t ever want to stop reading. Simplistic, witty, and sarcastic tones seep off of every page and you can’t help but to smile at how dire the situations are that Cassel gets himself into. I don’t know how he does it, but somehow he is always in trouble and it is always funny, for some reason. I don’t quite know why I find such humor in this dark little series, but I do and I love it.

I sink down to the grass. It’s damp with dew. I feel sick, but self-loathing has become a familiar sickness. I was a monster before. A monster with the excuse that he didn’t know details so he didn’t really have to think about it.

So….There’s much more I can say but it would be very spoilery to do so. Do you know how hard it is to write a review for such a mysterious series without spoiling anything? Well, I’ll tell ya-it’s hard. So I will stop here and let you make your own judgements. Cassel is a wonderful character to follow: flawed, insecure, but somehow cocky, we have quite the enigmatic character. I only hope you can give this wonderfully weird series a chance-it’s excellent.

Only a monster would do this, but I already know I’m a monster.

Synopsis:

Cassel comes from a shady, magical family of con artists and grifters. He doesn't fit in at home or at school, so he's used to feeling like an outsider. He's also used to feeling guilty; he killed his best friend, Lila, years ago.

But when Cassel begins to have strange dreams about a white cat, and people around him are losing their memories, he starts to wonder what really happened to Lila. In his search for answers, he discovers a wicked plot for power that seems certain to succeed. But Cassel has other ideas and a plan to con the conmen.

Lie until even you believe it-that’s the real secret of lying. The only way to have absolutely no tells.

Too bad I’m not quite there yet.

When I try to think of a word that reminds me of this book, the most forthcoming is just this: Weird. This book was all kinds of weird. But, when I take the time to really delve deeper and actually peel back the layers of this intricate story-line, I begin to ‘see’ so many more words pop into my mind: Haunting, clever, mesmerizing, addicting…sweet. There are so many ways to look at a story and if you filter all the mystery out of the words, then it does, in fact, come off as a super weird book. But when you totally immerse yourself and ask ‘Why is this happening?’, ‘What triggered this?’, ‘Where the hell is this going?’, I swear that you’ll find yourself racing through the pages and before you know it, you’ll be closing the book. It’s that kind of story.

I don’t want to be a monster, but maybe it’s too late to be anything else.

Cassel is one of those characters that really gets under your skin. You don’t quite know why you like him, but you find yourself laughing at his sarcasm, feeling pain for this kid who grew up feeling like the most insignificant member of his family. You find yourself smiling at his charm and your heart breaking when he thinks of Lila, his childhood best friend (and only friend), and the girl he killed years ago. This sounds shady as fuck, I’ll give you that, but in this world, everyone wears gloves to hide their ‘curse’ and to prevent their touch from doing irreparable damage by making contact with someone’s skin. This is a world where children grow up around con workers as mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers. Even if you aren’t involved with the con work, there’s still a chance you’ve been ‘cursed’ and are considered a worker. This simply means you might have a touch that causes selective memory loss, luck, death, etc. But with each of these ‘gifts’ there is ample cost-No gift in their world comes without a price.

I hate that I love this. I hate that the adrenaline pumping through the roots of my body is filling me with giddy glee. I’m not a good person.

You’re probably still wondering about how he murdered his best friend and the girl he’s always been in love with, right? I didn’t know how I’d feel about it, personally. But, for whatever reason, I found myself identifying with him, sympathizing for him, hoping it was all a misunderstanding and that he had been worked. See, Cassel is the only one in his family without a gift-he is the only non-curse worker. I think this made him a really sweet and relatable character, and all the more identifiable as someone who had significantly screwed up in his past. And, more than that, it was devastating to see how much he just wanted his brothers to love him and accept him, but instead they grew up stomping him under their foot as if he was an insignificant piece of trash, just because they could. Now, I can’t say nothin’ about anythin’ but I will say this-If you grew up with a deplorable family that did deplorable things…what keeps them from conning you?

Marks think they can get something for nothing.
Marks think they can get what they don’t deserve and could never deserve.
Marks are stupid and pathetic and sad.
…..
Marks forget that whenever something’s too good to be true, that’s because it’s a con.

At times I found this to be very dark and even somewhat disturbing, but that was more at the beginning. Once I began to see everything unwind, it all started to make sense and I became fully immersed in figuring out what was wrong with the distorted picture we were being given. Lies upon lies, and betrayals on top of betrayals, we don’t get a clear picture until the end-and even then it’s like looking through fractured glass. It was excellent.

The easiest lies to tell are the ones you want to be true.

Altogether an amazing story that I couldn’t put down even for a minute. More than once I was covering my mouth with my hand to stifle a gasp and begging for a better end than what was coming for Cassel. In a way, this book was almost told through an unreliable source’s eyes and we are left wondering what’s reality and what’s make-believe. I loved this aspect. Each time we learned something, we realized there was so much more to the story and it never really stopped growing as a plot, it never really and truly ended. So, I absolutely cannot wait to start book two. If it’s even half as good as this one I will be ecstatic…but more than that, I can’t wait to see what becomes of Cassel and his new-found ‘friends.’ He’s still trying to figure all that out. And that cliffhanger-agh!!!