Books written by Lauren DeStefano, published 2017, The Cursed Sea published 2018
Wilhelmina (Wil) Heidle is the youngest of four children of King Hein of Northern Arrod, the third spare heir to the throne. Kept hidden and unknown to those outside the castle, the king uses her as a spy until she is attacked and the strange ability to turn living things to stone surfaces. In a tragic accident, she is banished for hurting someone close to the king. Wil uses this as an opportunity to seek out a cure for her curse, and comes across a cursed prince who sees her ability as an opportunity to rectify the poverty of his kingdom set in motion by the Northern king.
The main thing behind all of my complaints about these books is that they could have been so much more!! Being a steampunk twist on the story of King Midas, the premise and summary are so intriguing, and by those alone it seems like something that would create a fandom, but the execution was simple and not fully realized in each instance. I really liked this duology, but I found myself questioning whether I truly wanted to pass it on as a must-read. While I can’t say to bump it to the top of your list, I will say that it is not a waste of time, as it is truly entertaining.
If you touch these spoilers ahead, you may turn to stone.
On many nights in Wil's childhood, the queen would hold her and rock her to sleep, and she would whisper "Death itself is no match for you. The day you were born, it shrank away in fear."
The story revolved around the characters, which is definitely a style choice. Most of the action would have naturally come from kingdoms at war and the royal families contending, but instead, DeStefano made those background elements while focusing on sibling conflicts. It would have been beneficial to find a good balance between the two; being able to show the consequences that fearful and evil kings can have on the kingdoms in addition to how much they screwed up their children.
Both Loom and Wil mentioned wanting to take care of their people and protect them from the harm of a war and poor royal decisions, but there wasn’t much trickle down hardship aside from the one bomb that Baren sent to the southern kingdom. The war between kingdoms seemed like simply the basis of the secret enemies dynamic between Wil and Loom. The contention between the kingdoms is merely mentioned and maybe seen through a small portion in the motivations and paranoia of each king, with no real world implications. Even though Wil was supposed to be a spy for the king, we only see maybe four short instances of her in the towns among people, and that’s even between two books. The rest of the time, we are taken on a boat, in castles, or across uninhabited land.
I lost the purpose behind having Wil turn things to gold when she was feeling her love for Loom, except that it was the solid connection to the story of Midas. If it was a sign or admission of her love for him despite her resistance because of their mutual curses, then Wil wasn’t even privy to the connection.
The Wil-Loom-Zay dynamic could be considered a love triangle, but it is not a tug-of-war like is typically seen, and Wil keeps her identity a secret from Loom who will hate her once he finds out who she is. It has the merits of a great series, but I just wish that DeStefano had taken more time to tell it. It shocked me how few pages were left as Loom and Espel left to fight their father. I almost feel like they should have taken care of him before the battle with Pahn, but I guess there needed to be questions about the other’s loyalty. Also, I had a moment of confusion at the very end when Wil had learned to use her curse and call it forward or bury it, but then literally two paragraphs later DeStefano starts talking about how she hadn’t been able to turn anything to gemstone in the months since she has seen Loom, and how ordinary she became. Maybe I’m just reading it wrong, so let me know what I missed, and if you liked this duology for how it is or if it left you wanting more.
PS–Did anyone else just get crushed for Owen and Addney, or was it just me?
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