A Curse for True Love (Once Upon a Broken Heart, # 3)
By: Stephanie Garber
Publication: October 24, 2023 by Flatiron
386 pages
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Magic
Source: Personal Kindle Library
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Goodreads description--Two villains, one girl, and a deadly battle for happily ever after.Evangeline Fox ventured to the Magnificent North in search of her happy ending, and it seems as if she has it. She’s married to a handsome prince and lives in a legendary castle. But Evangeline has no idea of the devastating price she’s paid for this fairytale. She doesn’t know what she has lost, and her husband is determined to make sure she never finds out . . . but first he must kill Jacks, the Prince of Hearts.
Blood will be shed, hearts will be stolen, and true love will be put to the test in A Curse for True Love, the breathlessly anticipated conclusion to the Once Upon A Broken Heart trilogy.
Oh my heart. After the cliffhanger ending of The Ballad of Never After I jumped into A Curse for True Love immediately. Like, I finished and almost simply flipped the next page found book 3 on my Kindle, and just kept reading. I highly recommend having A Curse for True Love to read lined up if you plan to read The Ballad of Never After.
So we start with Evangeline having just lost her memory of the last year. She doesn't remember anyone she's met in the Magnificent North. She wakes up to Apollo telling her that he's her husband (true), and then he proceeds to fill in minimal gaps with a few historical rewrites. Evangeline doesn't know the difference. She does have some instinctual, residual feelings. I think this is actually a scientifically proven thing in some ways. Our brains can remember when we've left a task incomplete even if we can't always remember what that task was., Evangeline feels an urgent sense that she needed to tell someone something very important. But she can't remember who and she can't remember what. She has some instinctual feelings about Apollo. She has some instinctual feelings about other characters as well--some she's met before and some she hasn't. I was annoyed that she didn't trust her instincts as much as I wanted her to, yet I could see why she wouldn't.
Jacks is heartbroken. He knew Time would take something from him, but he didn't think that something would be taken from Evangeline instead. He blames himself. Yet he's just so relieved that she's still alive--considering he witnessed Chaos murder her out of bloodthirst. He wants so badly for her to remember him and her feelings for him. Yet he also knows that her forgetting is actually less painful for her. But not less painful for him. At the same time, he can't have gone through all of that just for someone else to kill her. And yet it seems she's still being sought after by multiple people trying to harm her. Jacks has a fulltime job trying to keep her alive. And thus they keep getting thrown together.
Evangeline has the smallest sparks of remembering when she's near Jacks, and that makes her want to be near him more. I wondered how long the memory loss would drag on. And thankfully, they all came back in one whoosh eventually rather than trickling out over the course of the entire book. But that's all I'll say about that before we spoil too much.
Favorite quotes:
-Her heart still hurt, as if it had been broken and only jagged bits remained. She put a hand on it, as if to keep more pieces from breaking off. And once again, she was struck with the inescapable feeling that among everything she'd forgotten was one thing more important than all the rest, more important than anything.
-...but some things were worth hurting for...
-"I do understand, and I hope you understand that as long as you treat me like an untrustworthy captive, I will act like one instead of like your wife."
-Instead she was exhilarated. It felt as if she'd found a bit of her old self. And it was one of her favorite pieces. It was the part of herself that loved to hope.
-But she wasn't supposed to want to kiss him. It wasn't fair of [...] to hate her a little for it. But feeling hateful was the only thing that made it possible for him to leave. And he really needed to leave.
-...the curse had been cast out of terror, and curses that come from a place of fear always turn out a little twisted or become far more terrible than intended.
-"I've seen you try before. I've seen you want something more than anything else in the entire world. I've seen what you're willing to do. How far you were willing to go. You haven't even come close to that now."
-"There is never necessary evil, just poor choices, and I fear you're about to make one, boy."
-"Being yours does not make you mine."
-"I don't believe you, [...]. I might not remember everything about you. But I know you. I know that I know you, and I don't believe there is anything you can't do."
-"I know I seem naive," Evangeline pressed on. "I know my faith in love might appear foolish. I also know it might not be enough. But I'm not doing this because I believe I'll win. I'm actually a little afraid I'm going to lose. I no longer think love is a guarantee of victory or of happily ever after. But I think it's a reason to fight for those things. I know my attempt to save [...] could end in a firey explosion, but I'd rather go up in flames with him than watch while he burns."
-"I'm not going to hurt you." "I feel as if that's what people always say just before they hurt you."
The rest of my favorite quotes spoil too much so I won't include them.
A Curse for True Love is a good ending to a fun trilogy. I enjoyed all of the fairytale vibes. I liked the story curse, which was still present and working through this story. I loved Evangeline and Jacks and Lala. And I was happy with how everything ended. My only wish is that we had a little more time where the characters were happy together before it was over. Of course, the ending was left open for other stories in this world, and I'm 100% here for them. A Curse for True Love gets 4 Stars. Have you read A Curse for True Love? What did you think? Let me know!
