If you are a fan of fairy tale re-tellings, you simply cannot miss Brigid Kemmerer’s Cursebreakers series. Beauty and the Beast happens to be one of my favorites (in all its many iterations) and this series takes the story to a whole new level. Featuring an unwilling heroine with Cerebral Palsy, a cursed prince, and a stoic guardsman, Kemmerer spins a magical tale of fighting evil and falling in love. I mean come on, just look at these gorgeous covers!
A terrifying enchantress has cursed the land of Emberfall and Prince Rhen to re-live every autumn until he can find a girl who loves him. The catch? All the girls have long gone, fleeing from the terrifying beast that Rhen turns into at the end of every season. Rhen’s loyal guardsman, Grey, is tasked with finding his prince a girl for each season in hopes of breaking their shared curse. When Grey comes back with Harper, a strong-willed young woman with problems of her own, the prince and his guardsman begin to hope…The enchantress is only one of the problems facing Emberfall, and the three of them must work together to save the kingdom as well as themselves. Full of political intrigue, moral quandaries, and a slow-burn romance, "A Curse So Dark and Lonely" is only the beginning for these intrepid characters.
One of the best things about this series is that we hear the story from multiple perspectives. While the first book alternates between Rhen and Harper, the subsequent books include voices of some of the characters you will grow to love. The feeling of being that omniscient reader, seeing the characters struggle with their emotions and decisions while already knowing another character’s perspective, is utterly engrossing.
The world-building is very interesting and not over-done; it’s just enough so you get a sense of place without getting lost in long, drawn-out descriptions. It’s especially interesting that Harper is from modern-day America, and is suddenly thrown into this enchanted place. As a reader, you get to learn the magical elements along with her, and it certainly makes the dialogue more interesting!
If you pick up this series you can expect to find intrigue, magic, romance, scheming, monsters, and epic battles. I highly recommend Cursebreakers for all fans of magic!
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