Review: The Cursed Queen by Sarah Fine

The Cursed Queen is the sequel to The Imposter Queen, one of my favorite YA fantasy books lately. So you can expect that I was quite excited to get ahold of the sequel. Was I disappointed? Definitely not, but I do have a couple criticisms here and there.

Instead of continuing Elli’s story from The Imposter Queen, this book switches to a new character, Ansa. Though Ansa was born Kupari, she was kidnapped by the Krigere as a child, and has since become part of their tribe. The Krigere are a viking-like warrior people who were introduced as enemies of the Kupari in Book One. This installment tells their side of the story, from Ansa’s point of view.

Ansa was a pretty good main character. I think she definitely showed more personality than Elli, who was a little bland. Ansa was fierce, temperamental, and at times infuriating. Since coming to live with the Krigere, she’s completely adopted their way of life and their morals, or lack-there-of. Ansa believes that the Krigere are completely justified in all the killing and raiding they do. She takes pride and pleasure in raiding and killing. Kinda scary, I know.

However, after the Krigere suffer a devastating defeat at the hands of the Valtia, the witch queen of Kupari, Ansa finds herself cursed by the witch with wild, dangerous magic. As her tribe travels to a city-state conquered by their people, she is forced to confront the reality of her people’s ways and her true identity as a Kupari. Ansa’s unflinching faith in the Krigere’s violent way of life was infuriating at first, but she slowly realizes how wrong she was. Despite being a fantasy book, this book does have some important messages about morality, oppression, and power.

This is the sort of fantasy book where there’s enough worldbuilding to be satisfying, but it’s not overly complicated. Sarah Fine is excellent at coming up with sensible and realistic worlds with intriguing detail. The Krigere culture was explained nicely.

Only two characters from the first book appeared in this installment. It was good to see Sig again, though I’m a little worried about him. There were also new characters, some of who I loved. In the “loved” category at #1 is Halina:

“I should be grateful for your silence, when it allows the injustice to continue? Thank you for not trying to stop my people from being turned out of their homes and left to starve in the cold. Thank you for doing nothing while the best food and fuel is given to the invaders, while the people who built this city grow skinny and weak and despairing. Thank you for being part of the monster that crushes us. You think because you don’t wield the knife, you have no part in the slaughter?”

She breaks my heart, but I can’t wait to see what this girl does in the next book!

As for the romance, it was believable but I felt there was far too much conflict and distrust between Ansa and Thyra. They were always lying to each other and seemed to lose trust in each other every chapter. The conflict between them felt contrived at times, leaving me confused as to why they were fighting so much. I have doubts about the long-term potential of this relationship.

The biggest complaint I have with this book is the pacing. Around the middle, it dragged quite a bit because there was fairly long journey, followed by a confusing ordeal where the character’s loyalties seemed to change every scene. I had to force myself to keep reading a few times. While I burned through The Imposter Queen, it took way too long to get through this one.

In the end though, I like this series, and I look forward to the next book.