Until All Curses Are Lifted

Until All Curses Are Lifted is a 2019 young adult epic fantasy novel by Tim Frankovich. It was released in August of 2019 and published by Warpsteel Press. The author provided me with a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

The novel takes place in a fantasy world where the law is imposed by magic. If a person breaks the law, they’re cursed in one way or another. The only exception to this rule are the reigning six Lords of the world, Antises, who figured out a way centuries ago to bypass that particular rule. The story follows two protagonists: Marshal and Seri. Marshal was born cursed as punishment for the crimes of his father. He discovers that he’s heir to immense magical power and this leads him to flee for his life because his half-brother wants the power for himself and hires an assassin to pursue him. No one has ever escaped a curse, but Marshal, his mother Aelia and another boy from their village named Victor, journey to lift Marshal’s curse so that he can truly be safe. Seri, meanwhile, wants to become the first female mage and the most powerful mage in history. The magic that holds Antises together is failing and no one knows why. While the ground itself shakes, someone starts murdering mages. In danger from all directions, Seri must learn how to use her unique abilities before everything falls apart. As both Marshal and Seri go on their respective journeys, neither knows they’re being watched from another realm.

Marshal might be the first main character of his kind that I’ve read. As explained above, Marshal is cursed due to the actions of his father. His curse is that he’s unable to communicate. He can’t speak, or make any type of sound, he can’t use a form of sign language and the only way he can get any information across is by nodding or shaking his head, and that’s only if he remembers what each gesture means. This means that, while the reader sees things from Marshal’s perspective through his narration and thoughts, we’re the only ones who know what he’s thinking, the other characters do not. Since he can’t speak, many characters believe he isn’t aware of what’s going on or doesn’t fully understand things happening around him, but he does, he just can’t express that. At the beginning of the novel, Aelia, Marshal’s mother, is the only person who seems to care about him. Everyone in the village, and the world at large, loathe people who are cursed, even children who were born that way. Aelia is the driving force behind Marshal’s story and one of the strongest, most complex characters I’ve read in a while. She doesn’t care where she has to go or what she has to do, she’s going to get Marshal’s curse lifted. At the same time, she’s never willing to tell anyone much about her plans, keeping things very close to her chest. Seri is the other main character and she is committed to not only being the first female mage, but also the greatest mage of all time. She arrives at Zes Sivas, where mages are trained, to learn magic as magic is causing the world to fall apart. Seri and her fellow acolytes are the highlights of the chapters taking place at Zes Sivas. They’re dripping with personality and agency. One of my favorite traits of Seri’s is how curious she is about what’s going on around her and how tenacious she is about finding answers. Everyone else just wants to stop the world from falling apart, while she wants to understand why it’s falling apart to begin with. There’s a whole host of other characters, both good and bad, that I enjoyed in this story, and it would take me forever to run through all of them. Frankovich did an excellent job writing interesting and unique characters.

One of my favorite aspects of this book is the way the alternating POVs is used to tell the story. Marshal’s journey shows the reader the world in the way an average person would see it. His group travels to different lands, meets people of different cultures and gives a more down-to-earth perspective of things. Seri’s story, meanwhile, reveals information about Antises in a broader sense. Through her studying magic, the reader learns how magic works in this world. Through Zes Sivas preparing for an annual ritual, the six different lands are explained, including current tensions between the lands. Seri and Marshal’s stories do overlap, but not until close to the end of the novel, which I liked because it gave both storylines a chance to breathe and develop without the plots contriving to bring them together. The story ends exactly where it needs to, and concludes enough of the story to be satisfying while providing the framework for the sequel, which according to the excerpt at the end, is titled Until All Bonds Are Broken.

This book surprised me. I feel like a lot of young adult fantasy, including young adult epic fantasy, tends to shy away from some of the more nitty-gritty aspects of life.  While there isn’t gratuitous violence, Until All Curses Are Lifted doesn’t shy away from it either. There’s a fair amount of violence, bloodshed and death. The same is true for discussions of sex and other topics some books like to gloss over or pretend don’t exist. While I found those aspects of the story refreshing, what really surprised me was the themes of this story and how deep some of those themes run. One of the major themes is about power and how it corrupts those who wield it when left unchecked. That theme isn’t uncommon, but here it’s shown, both literally and figuratively, and runs through multiple storylines, not just one. There’s also something to be said for its message about fear of the unknown or unfamiliar. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by this book.

While I enjoyed Until All Curses Are Lifted, I do have some criticism to share. The pacing is a little strange. Obviously, a fight scene or scene with a lot of tension is going to feel more fast-paced than just two people talking, but there were parts of this story where the pacing of a scene didn’t make sense for what was happening within a scene. Likewise, the way the story is broken up into chapters felt weird to me. There were a few instances where two consecutive chapters could’ve been one single chapter instead. There are 430 pages in the book, and it’s 83 chapters when it could’ve been closer to around 50 if some of the chapters had been combined. I know it’s not a huge deal, but I did find that choice to be a little odd. While I enjoyed the story overall, and the ending, I do think there could’ve been a little bit more foreshadowing about some of the revelations at the end, but I can understand why Frankovich might be holding off until the sequel to delve into some of those things. I have some complaints about the novel, but they didn’t distract from my enjoyment of the book.

Until All Curses Are Lifted is a solid epic YA fantasy. The characters are well-written, the world is fascinating and the story is refreshing. I look forward to seeing more of it in the sequel when it’s released. I would recommend it to any epic fantasy fan, both teenagers and adults. It would be especially enjoyable for readers that like hybrid magic systems.

Rating: 3.9 stars

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