Book Review – A Curse So Dark and Lonely

Title: A Curse So Dark and Lonely (Cursebreakers #1)

Author: Brigid Kemmerer

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Publication Date: January 29, 2019

484 pages

5/5 stars

Goodreads Synopsis

Fall in love, break the curse.

Cursed by a powerful enchantress to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year, Prince Rhen, the heir of Emberfall, thought he could be saved easily if a girl fell for him. But that was before he turned into a vicious beast hell-bent on destruction. Before he destroyed his castle, his family, and every last shred of hope.

Nothing has ever been easy for Harper. With her father long gone, her mother dying, and her brother constantly underestimating her because of her cerebral palsy, Harper learned to be tough enough to survive. When she tries to save a stranger on the streets of Washington, DC, she’s pulled into a magical world.

Break the curse, save the kingdom.

Harper doesn’t know where she is or what to believe. A prince? A curse? A monster? As she spends time with Rhen in this enchanted land, she begins to understand what’s at stake. And as Rhen realizes Harper is not just another girl to charm, his hope comes flooding back. But powerful forces are standing against Emberfall . . . and it will take more than a broken curse to save Harper, Rhen, and his people from utter ruin.

Review

The choices we face may not be the choices we want, but they are choices nonetheless.

A Curse so dark and loney, brigid Kemmerer

It’s finally Friday! The end of the week always makes me so happy, even when I took two days off work in the beginning of the week! I started ACSDAL while away in Lewes, DE over the weekend and finished it all in one day. Vacation reading really is the best. I’ve had ACSDAL since Memorial Day and I’ve been super stoked to read it. After reading her most recent YA Contemporary, Call It What You Want, I knew I needed to read more of her work.

In a new Beauty and the Beast retelling, Kemmerer creates a kingdom that resides in a universe adjacent to ours. Emberfall was cursed when Prince Rhen messed around with an enchantress who went on to curse the kingdom. Rhen needs to make a woman fall in love with him, otherwise the curse will continue on forever while Emberfall is left defenseless. Oh, and at the end of every season Rhen turns into a scary monster, so there’s that.

Harper is the latest woman taken from Washington, DC for Rhen to charm. His Army Commander travels to DC to find women, though Harper wasn’t his first choice – just a concerned citizen who noticed a hulking man carrying and unconscious woman down an alleyway in a city. Totally normal. Harper is stolen from her very ill mother and brother who is doing unspeakable things to make up for their dad’s drug debts.

ACSDAL is a good retelling novel that follows the fairy tale pretty closely with the added benefit of some seriously snarky characters. Harper also has cerebral palsy, which adds a layer of disability rep. She is portrayed as not letting her CP stand in her way, but accepting her limitations and learning to work around then – without letting anyone believe she is lacking. To Rhen’s credit, he only underestimated her once in the beginning.

Kemmerer wove a tale that will captivate you and feel all the feels for Rhen, Harper, and Grey. The ending is a small level cliffhanger, but will lead into the next book seamlessly. This was also announced to be a trilogy, so I’m really excited to keep going in Harper and Rhen’s story for another two books – praying for a happy ending for my two love birds.

Happy reading, bookish friends 🙂