Hex Appeal cover art

Hex Appeal

 Preview

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options
Buy Now for £16.05

Buy Now for £16.05

About this listen

Fall under the intoxicating spell of their hex appeal…. In the magical world that lies hidden beneath our own, witches and conjurers play deadly games. They know just the right spell to kill a man with one kiss—or raise him back again. And they’re not afraid to exact sweet revenge on those who dare to cross them. But what if you’re the unlucky soul who falls victim to a conjurer’s curse? And if you had the power to cast a magic spell of your own, would you use it?

In this bewitching collection, nine of today’s hottest paranormal authors tell all-new, otherworldly tales. Spellbinding stories featuring bigfoot, albino vampires, professional wizards, resurrected boyfriends, and even a sex droid from the 23rd century named Silicon Lily. But as our conjurers are about to discover, it’s all fun and games until someone gets hexed. And sometimes, even the best spun spells can lead to complete and utter mayhem.

©2012 Ilona Andrews, Jim Butcher, Rachel Caine, Carole Nelson Douglas, P. N. Elrod, Simon R. Green, Lori Handeland, Erica Hayes, Carrie Vaughn (P)2012 Audible, Inc. Anthologies & Short Stories Fantasy Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Science Fiction Magic Magic Users Paranormal Game Short Story

Critic reviews

"Heavy hitters serve up sharp, dark, witty urban fantasy in this anthology of nine hex tales, each with a unique twist." ( Publisher's Weekly)
All stars
Most relevant
I love witches. Any gender, any lore, any moral alignment (except INHERENTLY EVIL), love it. Grew up on Charmed, cheered for the new Sabrina, always eat it up. Was therefore kind of disappointed that only one story in this collection stood out to me as revisit material. 'Outside the Box', however, WAS a super solid, exciting, and very well crafted read, and since I rate anthologies based on my favourite entry, definite 4 stars.

I will admit, I was amused by just how much a story shoots up in my estimation if it has no romance; not a moral or aesthetic judgement; I'm just aromantic and a romance plot or even subplot drags things down a star or two (and sometimes right out of the the reread zone) for me nearly every time (there's a HINT toward the end that a romance WILL develop but it's easy to just interpret as the characters getting to know each other better).

The concept of the story is intriguing (even if the 'all myths are true' approach to vampires was a LITTLE jarring next to the more functional magic witch lore), and it's executed very well, with a cool twist and a satisfying resolution. Yeah there's a bit of the 'squishy wizards' (or in this case, witches) trope where the vampires are super fast and strong and the witches can barely defend themselves even with magic (thank you 'The Vampire Diaries') but the author explain this witch has a very particular set of skills that aren't great for combat magic, so I'll chalk that up to us only seeing a TINY sliver of this world and what its magic and people can do.

'Outside the Box' is a great read/listen, worth the collection, and people with fewer... allergies than I have are likely to find a lot more to repeat-enjoy among the other entries.

4 stars for 'Outside the Box'

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I picked up this anthology because I'd heard about it from somewhere and thought it might be an interesting sampler for a collection of today's better urban fantasy authors. While I've heard of some of the authors, the only one I'd ever read anything of was Jim Butcher, so I came in here with no clue as to the nature of the worlds or the kind of storytelling I was expecting.



Unfortunately, many of these made poor short stories for the simple reason that they had to expound huge amounts of backstory for you to understand the world, or they didn't and you then didn't understand what was going on.



I kind of expected the best of the set to be Jim Butcher's, and I wasn't wrong. While there is a vast array of background in Harry Dresden's world, you didn't need to know much of it to get the story or the characters, and Butcher does not reveal it if you don't need to know. The story is pretty cool too.



I had heard good things about Simon R Green and I'm sorry to say that his story put me off his Darkside series entirely. I didn't like the characters or the storytelling.



Lori Handeland's "There Will be Demons" has the only decent sex scene in it. (If you're looking at that cover and title, and expecting something sexy, don't be fooled.) Beyond that, it appeared to make essentially no sense. Snow Job by Carole Nelson Douglas suffered badly from the author's desire to place the story within a series. If I heard "Post Millennium Revelation Vegas" one more time I might have shot something. Cherry Kisses by Erica Hayes and The Aracane Art of Misdirection by Carrie Vaughn were good enough, I enjoyed them, but they didn't make me want to hunt down more books, and the remaining tales were just basically filler, from my point of view.



Maybe, if you are enthused over the series these fall into, you would get more out of the stories. I would not say this was a complete loss, and it did keep me entertained to some degree, but it's nothing to write home about.

Not a total loss

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Really enjoyed this and a good taste of a group of different authors. Different narrators is nice too.

Great taster for a bunch of authors

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Book's overall rating ★★★½ Stars
Really enjoyed ‘'Bigfoot on Campus'' by Jim Butcher, definitely the best story by far & in a total league of it’s own. In my opinion this story & ''Holly’s Balm'' by Rachel Caine saved the book from a far lower overall rating

''Retribution Clause" – Book 5.6 (Kate Daniels) by Ilona Andrews - ★★★½ Stars
''Bigfoot on Campus" – Book 11.9 (The Dresden Files) by Jim Butcher - ★★★★★
''Holly’s Balm'' – Part 2 (Holly & Andrew) by Rachel Caine - ★★★★
''Snow Job'"– Book 5.1 (Delilah Street) by Carole Nelson Douglas - ★ Star
''Outside the Box" – by P.N. Elrod - ★★★½ Stars
''How Do You Feel?"– Book 6.5 (Nightside) by Simon R. Green - ★★½ Stars
''There Will Be Demons"– Book 0.5 (Phoenix Chronicles) by Lori Handeland - ★ - Horrid ending
''Cherry Kisses"– Book 4.5 (The Shadowfae Chronicles) by Erica Hayes - ★★½ Stars

Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden Files - The Bigfoot Trilogy
Part 1 - ''Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron" – ''B is for Bigfoot" (Dresden Files Bk 2.5)
Part 2 - ''Blood Lite III: Aftertaste" – ''I was a Teenage Bigfoot'' (Dresden Files Bk 6.5)
Part 3 - ''Hex Appeal" – ''Bigfoot on Campus" (Dresden Files Bk 11.9)
(This trilogy has now been released altogether in ''Working for Bigfoot’')

(Holly & Andrew) by Rachel Caine
(Holly & Andrew Part 1) found in- ‘Strange Brew’- "Death Warmed Over"
(Holly & Andrew Part 2) found in- ‘Hex Appeal’- "Holly’s Balm"
(Holly & Andrew Part 3) found in- ‘Kicking It’- " Forked Tongues"
I would recommend reading 'Death Warmed Over' first so able to fully enjoy this really good series of short stories :)

Anthology

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I picked up this anthology because I'd heard about it from somewhere and thought it might be an interesting sampler for a collection of today's better urban fantasy authors. While I've heard of some of the authors, the only one I'd ever read anything of was Jim Butcher, so I came in here with no clue as to the nature of the worlds or the kind of storytelling I was expecting.

Unfortunately, many of these made poor short stories for the simple reason that they had to expound huge amounts of backstory for you to understand the world, or they didn't and you then didn't understand what was going on.

I kind of expected the best of the set to be Jim Butcher's, and I wasn't wrong. While there is a vast array of background in Harry Dresden's world, you didn't need to know much of it to get the story or the characters, and Butcher does not reveal it if you don't need to know. The story is pretty cool too.

I had heard good things about Simon R Green and I'm sorry to say that his story put me off his Darkside series entirely. I didn't like the characters or the storytelling.

Lori Handeland's "There Will be Demons" has the only decent sex scene in it. (If you're looking at that cover and title, and expecting something sexy, don't be fooled.) Beyond that, it appeared to make essentially no sense. Snow Job by Carole Nelson Douglas suffered badly from the author's desire to place the story within a series. If I heard "Post Millennium Revelation Vegas" one more time I might have shot something. Cherry Kisses by Erica Hayes and The Aracane Art of Misdirection by Carrie Vaughn were good enough, I enjoyed them, but they didn't make me want to hunt down more books, and the remaining tales were just basically filler, from my point of view.

Maybe, if you are enthused over the series these fall into, you would get more out of the stories. I would not say this was a complete loss, and it did keep me entertained to some degree, but it's nothing to write home about.

It was entertaining

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews