You might remember that Brigid Kemmerer’s A Curse So Dark And Lonely was my first read of the new year, and it had my heart for a whole host of reasons. At the time I’d written up some thoughts, I had not long started its sequel, A Heart So Fierce and Broken. Now that’s been read and I’ve had a few weeks to reflect, I wanted to post some thoughts here!

You’ll know if you’ve read A Curse So Dark And Lonely that it ends on a cliffhanger surrounding Grey and what the revelation means to and for him. A Heart So Fierce and Broken takes that mantle and runs with it as the story shifts to his perspective. We enter new lands as Grey journeys to the neigbouring kingdom of Syhl Shallow, new allies & new enemies, as Grey has to decide if he is willing to accept the new path the previous book laid out for him…

Having loved the previous book as much as I did, then, it’s fair to assume two things: the first, that I was hugely excited to get my paws on a copy so soon after reading this one, it’s been a long while since I felt so connected to a fictional world and wanted to stay there as long as possible. Secondly, I had a fear that the sequel might not live up to my love and expectations. Happily though, for the most part my love is as strong as ever it was, and excitingly my expectations were both met, a little sadly broken and built back even stronger, all in one.

Brigid writes female characters that I adore because of their depth & scope she gives them to grow. Though this is Grey’s story, a new character, Lia Mara joins us in this adventure and she, like me, is a reader with a incredibly bright mind. She struggles to make herself heard and worries how she is percieved by others; I found that very endearing and it was a pleasure to see her grow in confidence to become strong and believe in herself.

” Ah yes, the most dangerous person at the party is always the girl sitting alone with a book.”

The relationship she has with Grey was also a joy to me as it’s really sweet and understated, they rely on each other for support, and slowly learn how to bring out the best in each other.

“You did not think you could do it, and then you did. That is more than physical strength”

Lia Mara also has a sister, Nolla Verin, who though I’m still not sure I can say with complete confidence I like, the way Brigid writes their relationship warmed my heart, so simply and beautifully – in spite of their differences in approach and personality, their love shines through.

We also meet Isiak, a Scraver whom Grey rescues and proves to be very perceptive with an interesting past which I hope we might get to explore more, and Tycho, a sweet and fiercely loyal new friend to Grey who wants nothing but to be useful and prove himself, and he’s definitely my favourite addition to the crew!

As with its predecessor, I enjoyed the pacing – even though I guessed a twist fairly early on thanks to a specific sentence. The first book flows well into this one, and I love how everything escalated slowly rather than being action packed: it allows for character development that was important here.

Unfortunately, that’s also where things became a little problematic for me. I loved where Brigid has taken Rhen and Grey’s relationship and what it might mean going forward, but I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Rhen now, it feels like he’s become a shadow of his former character, I just found him angry, bitter and really quite unlikeable! I was also sad about the lack of Harper given the way I connected to her in the previous book. Having said that, I’m massively hopeful for the future because of the darker direction things have gone in, I’m wondering if the next book will be told from Harper, Rhen’s, Grey AND Lia Mara’s point of view!

Having said that, my love for Grey has only deepened with his story because of how complex he is. He’s dealing with a lot of conflicting emotions so I really empathised and he has some really lovely moments with Lia Mara and Jake, even though I didn’t always agree with his motives or actions. I much prefer characters that keep me on my toes like that.

All in all, I’m a very happy Cursebreaker and cannot wait to see where this goes…