Curse the Dark review from Bookpage
Jul. 3rd, 2005 09:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lagilmanSupernatural sparks fly
When you're all too human and a little bit more, life takes on new challenges. Wren Valere has Talent—she is part of a group of people who can use electricity to perform magic—and that makes her a valuable searcher for lost or stolen artifacts, but it also sets off alarms in airports. These days, Wren is setting off new alarms, of the relationship kind, as she and her business partner Sergei Didier connect with the kind of sparks that make for shivery, dishy reading in Laura Anne Gilman's second Retrievers novel, Curse the Dark. A purloined paper guarded for centuries in an Italian monastery must be found before it unleashes dire consequences upon the world. A representative of a secret order called the Silence commissions Wren and Sergei's hunt, but the Silence also seems to be behind efforts to break up their partnership. Gilman's romantic fantasy artfully blends ancient magic into the 21st century for fascinating reading.
Boldfacing mine, natch. sighted (and cited from) here As seems to be weirdly usual, they have it under 'romance' rather than fantasy. *sigh* But at least my foster family seems to like me a little.
When you're all too human and a little bit more, life takes on new challenges. Wren Valere has Talent—she is part of a group of people who can use electricity to perform magic—and that makes her a valuable searcher for lost or stolen artifacts, but it also sets off alarms in airports. These days, Wren is setting off new alarms, of the relationship kind, as she and her business partner Sergei Didier connect with the kind of sparks that make for shivery, dishy reading in Laura Anne Gilman's second Retrievers novel, Curse the Dark. A purloined paper guarded for centuries in an Italian monastery must be found before it unleashes dire consequences upon the world. A representative of a secret order called the Silence commissions Wren and Sergei's hunt, but the Silence also seems to be behind efforts to break up their partnership. Gilman's romantic fantasy artfully blends ancient magic into the 21st century for fascinating reading.
Boldfacing mine, natch. sighted (and cited from) here As seems to be weirdly usual, they have it under 'romance' rather than fantasy. *sigh* But at least my foster family seems to like me a little.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-07-03 02:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-03 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-03 05:07 pm (UTC)This person? Is full of shit. I actually had to put CURSE down for a bit because the opening scene is so well-written and believable that it set off my flying phobia. *wry grin*
no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 10:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 04:59 am (UTC)Two things: the first is that it's very human. During the long awaited scene with Wren and Sergi, I died laughing a few times because I've said (and done) some of the exact same things with my girlfriend. It's like you were reading my mind. Your characters are very human.
The second is that all of your stuff is internally consistent and makes SENSE, especially the stuff about current. When you brought up slate, I could see where that was going rather quickly. I didn't know exactly what it meant, but I caught the oddness of putting a semiconductor in a dark space, just as Wren did. It's neat. you've definitely done your research.
-Tug
no subject
Date: 2005-07-04 07:25 am (UTC)Thanks. And yeah, things being internally consistent is something I try very hard to manage. It's tough -- there are things in Life that make no sense, after all, and sometimes Fiction's need for coherence cuts into its reality, but you try to balance the two as best you can...
no subject
Date: 2005-07-06 05:53 pm (UTC)I smiled and or laughed all the way thru the book. Rare these days. CTD was deeelightfulll.
Thank you very much Suri, really had a great time.
DC