The Cursed Queen by Sarah Fine (review)

There’s very little initial overlap in this companion novel to The Imposter Queen (BCCB 1/16), though it’s clearly set in the same world where magic is considered evil and violence is common. In this outing, the focus isn’t on the future queen of Kupari but rather on the leader of the Krigere, a vicious group of plunderers who commemorate their kills by giving themselves scars that grant power and prestige. Stolen years ago, Ansa has been raised as full Krigere, embracing the culture completely; she’s also fiercely loyal to (and in love with) the complicated new leader of the Krigere, who has bold ideas about how to incorporate some diplomacy into their lives. Readers of the first novel will instantly spot a huge plot twist, which is that Ansa is in fact the queen of Kupari that everyone was seeking in the last book, but that doesn’t take away from the agony Ansa experiences as she grapples with the newly emerging magical powers that could disenfranchise her, resists anything that pushes her away from being Krigere, and just generally messes up in love, life, and war. The fact that she does, in fact, kill people with her uncontrolled powers is startling, but Fine makes Ansa a complex mixture of flaws and virtues, setting her in a world where she really couldn’t be anyone else. This is a worthy follow up to the previous outing, and there’s still plenty left to explore in both of these flawed cultures.