Review: A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer

I just read A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer. It’s another take on Beauty and the Beast, pitched to fans of ACOTAR, and okay, you got me there, because yes, I am a sucker for the plucky girl gets taken to an enchanted castle trope. The book is YA, which is not my favorite, but I thought I would give it a try.

The story follows Harper, a high schooler with big problems. Her mother is dying and her father got pulled into a life of crime and then left the family high and dry. Now Harper and her older brother Jake are struggling to make ends meet to afford medical care for their mother (tell me this is set in the US without telling me). Anyways, Jake doing some crimey stuff to pay off their father’s debts, and while Harper is standing lookout, she sees a man acting really sus and kidnappy with a woman on the street. When she intervenes, she is pulled into the world of Emberfall, where Prince Rhen (our second POV character) is struggling with the shit that’s gone down since he spurned an evil sorceress. Now Rhen is cursed to turn into a murderous beast at the end of every season and must relive the seasons over and over with no way out unless he finds someone to fall in love with him. He only has one loyal guardsman, Grey, left alive. Everyone else has run off or been murdered when he was in beast mode.

Characters

Harper is brave, and she will leap in to protect people, even if that means putting herself in danger. The author shows this trait in Harper in the first scene and is consistent throughout. Because of this core characterization, Harper’s actions, even when they are thoughtless or dangerous, don’t feel as if the author threw them in just to advance the plot. They feel more organic and believable to her character. Another think to note is that Harper also has cerebral palsy, which causes her to walk with a limp and to experience some weakness in her body. I have literally never encountered cerebral palsy rep before, especially in a fantasy setting. I have no personal experience with it, but to my understanding, it seemed well-done, so kudos to the author on that front.

Rhen is the classic cursed prince character. He accidentally killed all his family and has been doomed to repeat the same season over and over, so no surprise, he is a little depressed about that. He was a little bland to me. He is shown as a bit spoiled, but as having mostly outgrown that due to literally being cursed.

Grey is probably my favorite character in the book because he seems to have a little bit more depth. He is Rhen’s guard, loyal to a fault, and so his real internal thoughts and feelings are a bit more guarded and hidden (especially since he isn’t a POV character).

Besides these characters, there is also Jake, Harper’s older brother. We don’t know him well, but he is in a relationship with Noah, a medical resident, who we are introduced to but also don’t get to spend much time with yet. The big bad is Lillith—who is kind of a stereotypical woman-scorned evil sorceress. Overall, decent characters and pretty good representation.

Plot & Worldbuilding:

Okay so the worldbuilding is a little generic to me so far. The world sort of feels like any high-fantasy setting. There are castles, some royals, magic, and none of it felt groundbreaking or very integral to the plot. The most interesting part was that in this world, when a magician was killed, their power goes to all the remaining ones.

As for the plot, it was perfectly fine. Harper and Rhen have to build trust and with Harper’s encouragement to take a more active role in saving his neglected kingdom, Rhen comes up with a plan to put things back to rights, counting on Harper’s involvement. Something that I liked about the plot was that I expected to basically be stuck in the castle the entire time, but there are actually several field trips where Harper and co get to leave the grounds! It made for a plot that was all a bit more external than I had initially been expecting.

Romance

As part of how much more external rather than internal the plot was, I do think that the romance was on the back burner. Rhen and Harper have some cute moments together, but honestly, he is kind of meh, so the chemistry was a little lacking to me. There was more chemistry with Grey, which I’m sure will be part of the next book in the series. This is totally clean romance and it does not progress very far at all in Book 1.

Overall

I liked this book way more than I first thought that I would. It is perfectly proficient in terms of prose and pacing and moves right along. It had enough unexpected elements for me that I was entertained throughout and it kept me turning the pages. ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.