Title: The Unlucky Mister Locke
Author: Kristen Painter
Series: Shadowvale #8
Pages: 307
Gideon Locke’s family has been cursed for generations. It has branded him a jinx and led to him retreating to Shadowvale and his shop The Clockwork Owl. To keep his bad luck from hurting anyone he keeps to himself, but when the woman who owns Bits & Pieces next door comes to him asking for help with a commission he can’t refuse her. Now he is struggling with wanting to be with her but fearing he will hurt her.
It was nice being back in Shadowvale again after so long. This is such a unique town filled with fascinating people and creatures. Gideon and Sabrina are work neighbors and before this, never had talked to each other, mainly because Sabrina is relatively new in town. Their attraction to each other was there from the start, but due to the circumstances of Gideon’s curse, he keeps his distance from her, as best as he can anyways.
Gideon has basically lived a life of solitude for fear of hurting someone and we see him really struggle with getting close to Sabrina. I didn’t love the constant push/pull of Gideon’s actions towards Sabrina. Any time he realized he was letting her in and falling more for her, he would get grumpy and push her away. It got old quickly.
Sabrina was an interesting woman whose curse means she has to find and salvage broken things. This has led her to be a bit of a hoarder, but not a messy one, because she knows where everything is and plans to sell it once she can repair the item. I really liked her and her positive personality. She also was just a great friend who went out of her way to help those she knew. Sabrina and Gideon’s relationship was a lot of heated looks and pining for each other because they didn’t want to start anything before his curse could be removed, which was at the end. So while we do get to see these two as a couple, it is very brief. I wish there had been a bit more at the end because of that.
Overall, this was a good addition to the Shadowvale universe. I always look forward to these books and can’t wait for the next one. Also I wonder if Seymore will appear again in the series.
Goodreads | The StoryGraph | Amazon
Previous books and reviews in the series:
Red-Haired Ash Reads 