Rating: 3 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel
Maelys Mitchelmore is a young woman who is cursed. This curse first makes itself known as Miss Mitchelmore is attending a ball and her dress begins to unravel, forcing her to take cover in the gardens. With seemingly no rescue coming and her reputation on the line, Mae is distraught until Lady Georgiana, known to society as the Duke of Annandale, comes to her reluctant rescue.
However, the curse still isn’t broken and, as horrible consequences progress, Mae has to seek out assistance from Lady Georgiana as to how to break the curse. But Mae isn’t familiar with the type of deep dark magic and witchcraft that brings her face to face with gods and goddesses who have no reason to set her free.
Young Mae is also having romantic feelings for the first time and, while Lady Georgiana knows what she wants as well, she also knows that it is extremely inappropriate and forbidden for her and Mae to be together. Mae is determined to find out who has cursed her and to show Lady Georgiana that they could be a great fit. But the angry gods and vengeful magic have no reason to grant anyone a happy ending and the pair will have to make the greatest of sacrifices to not only break the curses, but to be allowed to carry on.
This book opens with a different spin, as the narrator introduces themselves. The narrator goes by many names, but “sprite” is one they are fine settling on. It is present day and the sprite has been banished from the courts and is living in the mortal realm, recounting Mae’s story from 1814. We never find out what the sprite did to be cast out. The sprite can take the form of anything it desires and follows around characters they find interesting to learn their stories. The worse time the mortals are having, the more interested the sprite is. The story is then told second hand through the narrator and this style kept all of the characters at a distance.
While Mae is young and supposed to be naïve, she has a strong will and has seemingly no issue with defying societal conventions. She doesn’t know why someone has placed a curse on her and the beginning of the book has her and family members traveling around meeting different characters trying to figure out who is out to get Mae. Yet, none of these characters resonated with me. The description of the book states it is in the style of Bridgerton and what I have enjoyed about historical pieces is the visual side that comes with the story, either through words or seeing it come to life in TV or movie. However, everything in this story felt flat to me. I didn’t care for the characters or the narrative style of the story. Since nothing is from the main characters’ point of view, there is little character development and the sprite had no way of knowing what the characters were thinking or feeling unless it was spoken out loud. There was also no world building. The characters are in a historical setting with rumors of magic and witchcraft, but all of a sudden the characters are tasked with battling gods and making sacrifices and there was no basic foundation laid and it was chaotic at times and not well executed at others.
The romance between Mae and Lady Georgiana is not the primary focus of the book and its soft and filtered tone left much unrevealed. This story was the narrator recounting a tale from long ago and how much was true and how much was embellished was also another point left open. This author has generally been hit or miss with me and this one wasn’t a hit.
