Plot summary of the Cursebreaker trilogy

In another world, running alongside ours, magic has a hold of the kingdom of Emberfall. One of the last remaining magic users has trapped the castle in a curse. Prince Rhen is doomed to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year until he can find a woman to fall in love with him. Each time he fails, he turns into a vicious monster, terrorising the very people he’s supposed to rule. He and Grey, the commander of his now-demolished royal guard, have been through this cycle more times than they can count. Then, Grey brings Harper back from our world, and finally it looks like things might change.

Harper’s hometown of Washington DC translates, in Emberfall, to the kingdom of Disi. She rallies the people around Rhen, persuading him that there’s more he can be doing for his lands, even with the curse in play. She’s a breath of fresh air. And she helps both Rhen and Grey to find hope in what has seemed a hopeless situation.

When the curse is finally broken though, it is not without sacrifice – or lingering questions. Grey has disappeared, and Harper doesn’t know what her true feelings are towards Rhen. Rumours swirl throughout the kingdom about a secret heir to the throne, challenging Rhen’s right to rule. The brutal neighbouring kingdom of Syhl Shallow is poised to invade, and Harper’s promises of reinforcements from Disi are starting to ring hollow.

There are no easy answers and, with war seeming more inevitable by the day, desperate people may turn to desperate measures.

My thoughts on the Cursebreaker trilogy

I’m going for something a bit ambitious today. I’m reviewing three books in one. Or two and a half, since one of them I have actually already talked about! In the March meeting of my Island Library book club we talked about the full Cursebreaker trilogy. And, since I read way too many books to keep up with reviews already, I decided to knock ‘em all out at once!

Book 1: A Curse so Dark and Lonely

I’ve already reviewed book 1, so I won’t go into a lot of detail here. Suffice it to say, I thought it was great! Not hugely groundbreaking in terms of YA fantasy, but a fun, novel take on Beauty and the Beast.

The real strength of this book, from my point of view, was the three main characters. I loved getting to know them and seeing the way their relationships with each other developed. The dynamics between all three felt well-imagined and interesting. Plus, there was some great growth over the course of the book.

Book 2: A Heart so Fierce and Broken

The first thing that surprised me about Book 2 of the Cursebreaker trilogy was its choice of point-of-view characters. We got almost nothing from Harper or Rhen’s perspective in this book. Instead, we followed Grey and a new character, Lia Mara.

It was definitely fun to read from Grey’s perspective. He was the only one of the three main characters in book 1 whose point of view we didn’t read from, so it felt great to see through his eyes. It provides new insight to Grey as a character, his motivations and thoughts, and I enjoyed that.

Lia Mara was a brand new character to the series. Coming from Syhl Shallow, she gave us a window into this ‘enemy’ territory. It was definitely fun to see the human side of this neighbouring kingdom. Lia Mara herself wasn’t the most engaging narrator though. For me, she felt a bit like a sweeter version of Harper. I didn’t feel like she brought anything new, apart from where she was from. Although, since her main point of conflict was not being like her family or living up to the ideas of where she was from, even this didn’t feel like the breath of fresh air that it could have.

There were aspects about this book I liked, but on the whole it fell short for me

The book dipped its toe into some really interesting storylines. I wanted to see more development of some of them though. As a result, I was left torn between appreciating the nod and feeling like I’d been teased with a much more interesting story, somewhere just out of reach!

There was some interesting acknowledgment of the trauma that Rhen and Grey had gone through. and how that affected them. There were nods towards an investigation of the relationship between Rhen and Grey. An almost-look at the feelings between Grey and Harper. None of it felt like it was really delved into to the extent I’d have liked, but I guess it was nice to see these ideas touched on?

I think part of the reason this was as frustrating as it was came down to the length of the book. It’s not short! But I didn’t feel like the things I most wanted to read about got much of that page time.

Largely it was devoted to things I wasn’t all that interested in. The romance between Lia Mara and Grey, for instance. I didn’t hate it, but it felt a little convenient, and I certainly didn’t feel as invested in it as I had in any of the relationships (romantic or otherwise) in book 1.

Book 3: A Vow so Bold and Deadly

Book 3 of the Cursebreaker trilogy meant a return of all four characters, and it was so nice to get back to Harper and Rhen in an ongoing way! Sometimes felt like there was overlap in the narrative voices, turns of phrase that came up in multiple perspectives in a way that felt a bit jarring, but on the whole I was glad to have all of them taking a turn at narrating.

Unusually for a trilogy, the third Cursebreaker book is the shortest of the bunch. It’s well-paced, though I felt it could have taken a bit more time to explore some of its storylines. I’m avoiding specifics, for obvious reasons! But there’s a return of some characters and dynamics from book 1, and I’d have liked longer to linger on the consequences of some of that.

The return of Harper and Rhen’s perspectives came with some downsides

As nice as it was to come back to Harper and Rhen, not having seen them for a whole book had a strange effect on picking their storyline back up. I wasn’t sure whether they were supposed to have developed – either as individual characters or within their relationship – and we’d missed it… or whether they were meant to be pretty much where we’d left them. That made getting back into their relationship harder than I think it would have been if we’d been able to see their perspectives more in book 2.

Also, Harper and Rhen make the same mistakes with each other over and over. I didn’t necessarily think that was unrealistic, and I understood why they kept going back to those patterns. It was still occasionally frustrating.

While I’m on the topic, one of my biggest issues with the last book of this trilogy was Harper. Not anything she did! But we never seemed to return to Harper as much as I wanted us to. And given how much she drove book 1 I felt the loss of her as a protagonist pretty keenly.

The third Cursebreaker book brought in some intriguing ideas that didn’t seem to go anywhere

I felt like there were a few interesting plot points that got introduced and not developed. The worst offenders for me were on the Syhl Shallow side of the story, although Emberfall wasn’t completely innocent. None of them were issues that tripped me up all that much while I was reading, to be fair. It was more after the fact. Thinking back on the book, I wondered what the point had been of bringing in certain ideas.

It was a fun read! I enjoyed it a lot. I didn’t feel like it entirely recaptured the magic of book 1, but it was a fairly satisfying way to round out the trilogy.

My thoughts on the Cursebreaker trilogy as a whole

I love fantasy, and magic in fantasy. Exploring a new magic system is always entertaining for me! I will (probably) never get bored of watching characters learn their magical limits. In book 1, magic was a purely antagonistic force, so I didn’t mind that it wasn’t all that fleshed out. In the second and third books though, I felt there was a missed opportunity to understand how magic works in this world.

Also, the wider world didn’t feel like it got any more fleshed out in the latter books. This was disappointing, since one of my book 1 highlights was the sense of a world beyond the castle grounds. I’d just have loved to see the world expanded. Particularly given how much of a role political dynamics played throughout the trilogy.

So, the wider world was a bit of a let-down for me. But! Characters and character relationships remained the saving grace of these books for me. Jake and Noah (Harper’s brother and his boyfriend) were a lot of fun. It was interesting to see how the two integrated into the world, and Noah in particular provided some fun lines reminding us of the difference between our world and Emberfall.

While it might not be the strongest fantasy series I’ve read, the Cursebreaker trilogy is definitely fun

I’d recommend it to YA fantasy readers, despite not loving the second book, because I do think the payoff at the end of book 3 is worth it. And my love for book 1 can’t be eradicated by the rest of the trilogy not completely living up to it.

If you’re looking for a fantasy with more of a fairy-tale vibe, I might point you towards Uprooted by Naomi Novak. If you’re after something darker and better developed, The Poppy War, by R. F. Kuang, is a really strong read. But if you want something light and easy, which starts of grounded in a familiar storyline? I don’t think you can go too far wrong with A Curse so Dark and lonely.