A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer Book Review
Overall rating:***
Romance: ***
Reading Rate: *****
Pages: 484
Buy it on Amazon: Here
I was so so so excited for A Curse So Dark and Lonely to come out! I also got a stunning edition in my Fairyloot Beauty and the Beast crate. I put my whole TBR aside and started reading this right away! This turned out to be a suck you in, fast paced read and only took me two days to knock out. Sometimes I love books like this that send me into a reading rush to cure my hangover from the story.
I admit I thought this was going to be a 5 star read for me, but after much consideration I landed at 3. Just a few pages in I already had a major ship going and as the book went on a love triangle started to come out. I know some folks totally love this angle though, it tends to frustrate me a bit as a reader… I am really a die hard One True Pairing kind of girl.
I thought this was an interesting take on a Beauty and the Beast. Most retellings that I have encountered the “Belle” knows that the Prince is the Beast. In this book the nature of the curse is a bit different in that a new girl is brought to Prince Rhen at the start of a “season” and he has until the end of that season to make her fall in love with him, before he turns into a monster. Once the season has ended, often with a large amount of loss, it resets and a new girl must be found to start all over.
We come in at the start of the last season for Prince Rhen as he is has upset the Enchantress, and she has doomed him to be a monster forever if he cannot make this final girl fall in love with him. That is only where some of the trouble begins as Harper attempts to stop the abduction of the final girl, only to end up in her place….
This is the first book in a series and I feel it will only get better with time now that a lot of the ground work and character building are in place. The second book in the series A Heart so Fierce and Broken is set to be released by Bloomsbury Publishing in January 2020.
Have you read A Curse So Dark and Lonely or have other retellings that you love? Let me know what you think in the comments.
Official Synopsis:
Fall in love, break the curse.
It once seemed so easy to Prince Rhen, the heir to Emberfall. Cursed by a powerful enchantress to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year over and over, he knew he could be saved if a girl fell for him. But that was before he learned that at the end of each autumn, he would turn into a vicious beast hell-bent on destruction. That was 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 barely holding their family together while constantly underestimating her because of her cerebral palsy, she learned to be tough enough to survive. But when she tries to save someone else on the streets of Washington, DC, sheโs instead somehow sucked into Rhenโs cursed world.
Break the curse, save the kingdom.
A prince? A monster? A curse? Harper doesnโt know where she is or what to believe. But as she spends time with Rhen in this enchanted land, she begins to understand whatโs 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.
Lovabull Books 