Wonderland Novels: [Review] A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer

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.
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.

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.

Harper's a feisty heroine, and those are the type that I love reading about best! She has cerebral palsy yet is also high functioning. She refuses to let her disability define her or limit her, and that was an admirable trait of hers. There were many instances where she stood her ground, against Lilith, against Rhen, against the assassins or townspeople, and while some of these instances were rash, she had the best intentions at heart. Back in DC, her mom is about to die from cancer, and her brother Jake has gotten caught up in his father's dirty business. She's just trying to stay afloat, and I like that the story did take the time to bring us back to her home town, so we could get a better understanding of her character.

Now the other characters mostly faded into the background for me. I don't really have much of an opinion on Prince Rhen. The romance between him and Harper felt forced, at least the kind of love that was forced by deadlines and by dire stakes, not necessarily by chemistry. This indifference towards him was fueled by the platonic chemistry I saw more so between Harper and Grey. Plus, Grey was a more compelling character to read (especially with that ending, more on that later). If anything, Rhen felt like an okay male protagonist, but all the agency in the story was the result of Harper's doing.

Now towards the end of the book Harper's brother Jake and his boyfriend Noah make an appearance, and they were so much fun to read. Noah's even a doctor, and those scenes mixing modern medicine and fantastical medieval healing techniques were humorous. It would have been interesting to have more of Harper's family and backstory - the sketchiness with her father and that sibling dynamic she shares with her brother.

The villain in this, Lilith, was very one-dimensional, popping up every so often out of nowhere like a Kingdom Hearts villain. Her motives seem to be only revenge, but can revenge be her only drive? She shows up to torment our characters and then disappears, only to show up a few chapters later doing the same thing.

As for the story itself, the machinations and political intrigue between countries was more or less an after thought, taking backstage whenever the center of the plot (Harper, falling in love, Rhen, mosnter) came up. So the whole gathering an army and speaking to the neighboring ruler wasn't really the focus and not as remarkable as the 'love story'. Was this the author's intention? Perhaps, given the Beauty and the Beast retelling.

On the ending, I'm happy that this can stand alone, but also happy that this gives way for more of Grey's character! I mean, I expected this ending (given the hints and all), but it's nice that this didn't bog down/mire the plot and was left as a cliffhanger.

So overall, some interesting characters, some not-so interesting characters, some political maneuvering, and a potential spin off! It wasn't a spectacular read, but it was a good page turner.

Also, on DC as the second setting, this line was clearly a missed opportunity to point out the monster in DC!