I'm pretty sure I'll love anything Drew Hayes does at this point.
Second Hand Curses was a lot of fun, and I'm a sucker for a fairytales but make it about the monsters/villains story! Each chapter was a new story, such as Cinderella or The Pied Piper, with a small connecting plot point throughout. It was a lot like Fred, the Vampire Accountant in that way. ( )

i have discovered a new favorite book (series?), and possibly author :)

this is like if 'american gods' or vertigo's 'fables' was had more sense of humour and the absurd, but also darker at the same time. each chapter is a heist on its own while building up to the final chapter. very character driven, and you do end up loving the characters by the end.

good, fun read! ( )

Series Info/Source: I got a copy of this audiobook through Audible.com. This is a stand alone book.

Audiobook Quality (4/5): The audiobook was well done and easy to listen to, no complaints.

Story (3/5): This is the second book by Hayes I have read (the first one was "NPCs") and I kind of feel the same way about this book that I did about that one...it was okay. I always like the premise of these novels a lot more than the actual execution. The way this book is set up you have three adventurers that are characters from various other fables/history/folklore and in each chapter they deal with a sort of issue/curse. Each chapter is kind of a short story and these chapters are loosely connected by the characters' main goal of hunting down the Blue Fairy.

Characters (3/5): The characters are pretty basic and over-characterized...not a lot of depth to them. I did like the various cameos and mash-ups of characters and situations from previous fairy tales, folklore, and historical fiction. However, this is a bit of a mess...this is a mash up of basically any type of historical story. You have references to fairy tales, references to folklore and some classic literature references (Frankenstein) as well...it really is a mess of a mash up.

Setting (3/5): The setting is a pretty typical fantasy setting. There is some discussion of the omnipotent “Narrative” driving the story. This gives a bit of a twist to the world but is something that’s been done in numerous other fantasy tales. There is some discussion of a land across the sea that doesn’t have magic and is more technology based, but this is never really gone into in detail.

Writing Style (3/5): The format makes the story a bit disjointed, you are kind of jumping from story to story and trying to stay in tune with the overall goal of the adventurers at the same time...it doesn't flow very well. As with “NPCs” I thought the writing in general was okay but not great.

My Summary (3/5): Overall this is okay. It's an open-ended story that is also pretty basic. It's entertaining, and I did grow to enjoy the characters and their adventures, but it just felt kind of thin and lacking...I never felt really sucked into this story and there just wasn't enough complexity here to keep me fully engaged. This is the second book by Hayes that I have felt this way about so I don’t plan on reading more books by him in the future, his style just doesn’t work well for me. ( )

A really fun entry in the "twisted fairytale" genre. I really enjoyed the characters. ( )

Twisting tales

When ‘happily ever after’ ain’t what you got, you call the Bastard Champions. Especially if The Narrative isn’t likely to be in your favor.

I enjoyed the depth of the characters. The novel follows a kind of braided short story format that has our intrepid heroes for hire facing successive challenges as they follow a particular path.

If you liked the idea of Mercedes Lackey’s “Five Hundred Kingdoms” but thought it need more grit and danger, this is what you should be reading.

I had a slight problem staying focused on reading during this novel. On some level, it didn’t keep me ‘in’ the story. I still quite enjoyed it. ( )