There are few series that actually leave me impatient for the following instalment. Once Upon a Broken Heart has been one of the few to leave me itching to find out what happens next, so when A Curse for True Love arrived on my doorstep I dropped all of my plans so I could find out exactly what happens next for Evangeline and Jacks.
Similarly to The Ballad of Never After this picks up immediately after the last page of the book that came before. Evangeline has woken up with her memories missing in the arms of a prince who claims to be her husband.
She doesn’t quite trust him, even if he is handsome and – having no recollection of either of the two books that came before – she feels as if she has woken up in a fairy tale that doesn’t quite fit. Her last memories place her back in her hometown and not in the mysterious North, nobody will give her straight answers to her questions and it seems that every day someone attempts to kill her.
I do think her memory loss is handled beautifully, especially if you’ve not read their story in a year like myself. The story isn’t overly loaded with reminders of the first two books but there are subtle details that spark a sense of familiarity that really immerse you in Eva’s struggle to remember what happened to her.
We flip between Evangeline, Jacks and Apollo’s perspective which is fascinating as they’re each keeping secrets from each other while wholeheartedly believing they’re the only person doing the right thing – even if they’re in direct contrast with each other. Prince Apollo has supposedly risen from the dead and his people have barely noticed, throwing the young ruler into an identity crisis where he’s forced to battle his ego – and he doesn’t always come out better for it.