A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer
Series: A Curse So Dark and Lonely #1
Rating: 3.5 stars
Published: January 29th 2019
Goodreads Synopsis:
Fall in love, break the curse.This was an interesting retelling of Beauty and the Beast - I haven't really read much of those. The juxtaposition of the real world (specifically, Washington DC, the little bit of it we saw) and the fantastical world was a twist that threw me for a loop. But not in a bad way necessarily, more like an "I never saw this before" sort of thing. The story is told in alternating POV between Harper, our female protagonist, who was kidnapped from DC by Commander Grey, and Prince Rhen, the heir to Emberfall who is cursed to never age by the witch Lilith. Each summer Commander Grey kidnaps a girl in hopes that she may fall in love with Rhen and break the curse. However, this hasn't happened for ages, and with the end of the season, the summer resets, and Rhen and Grey start their quest again. There's also a monster, a beast, prowling the country, attacking and killing innocents. Lilith tells Rhen that this will be the last summer of his curse, so he needs to fall in love soon. That's where Harper falls in.
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 Lacy. 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, she's instead somehow sucked into Rhen's cursed world.
Break the curse, save the kingdom.
A prince? A monster? A curse? Harper doesn't know where she is or what to believe. But 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.
