A reluctant 2-1/2 Stars. I'm not sure what happened. The story starts out all right, but as soon as we get to the 'else-when' scenes the story seems to lose coherence and, well, interest, to honest.

Since this is the first book of Coulter's books I've heard/read, I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt on her fantasy elements, but in the end they were neither clever or creative. I could see her surprise unveiling the parents in the else-when & their son Merlin Ambrosious at the end two discs away! As this is the sixth book in the series, she should have a handle on those elements by now.

While I stuck it out through to the end, I didn't care much for the narrator's style or her delivery.

And the scenes in which the two couples engage in enjoying, erm, adult pleasures/sex ... well I've read authors on FictionPress who do a better job of describing those types of scenes. Coulter's style (some of which could be attributed to the narrator too), at least in this book is so clumsy that I wonder about her ...

Also, if Sir Bishop had come after me the way he did Merryn, I would be screaming the big R word at the top of my lungs. 'Course, for some reason I was having a bit of trouble staying historically relevant, and had to remind myself that men could do what Bishop and the Prince do to their female counterparts without repercussion from society or the women themselves. ( )

The Penwyth Curse is an odd blend of two stories about two couples who seem to really be the same couple, just reincarnated (or something.) The different time periods are set so that we see the beginning and end of a curse on the land and the redemption of it through the valiantry of a maybe-kinda-sorta-wizard-knight guy. The main question seemed to be “when should I take her virginity? I know I’m going to marry her and I really want to have sex with her, but I might die from the curse if I do it now… but I’m a man with hormones. Dammit.” Add in Arthurian legends, magic wands, and Harry Potter style magic tricks, and this becomes a 345 page novel.

I read this book while my husband and father played a really dumb X-Box game (Rumble Roses), and while this book was better than watching that – it was only slightly better. It was cute in a fairly tale kind of way but soon through it my only motivation for reading it was so that I wouldn’t have to watch two men playing as half-naked chicks beat the crap out of each other in hi-def. At some points I just wanted to yell at the character “take her virginity already!” However, that would have warranted unwelcome comments from the testosterone filled men in the room. I love Catherine Coulter, but this book was a severe disappointment. ( )