Cursed

Gwin breaks social laws by harboring a young girl, a cursed survivor of a magical star sickness plague that kills or leaves survivors with terrifying powers. Desolate, Gwin navigates a world of unforgiving fate, prophesied doom, and potential redemption.

A disease ravages the land. Those who survive are considered cursed and are outcasts. The curses vary, including granting powers of healing that can also spread diseases, and madness-inducing glimpses of the future. Gwin is a hostess at a hostel who takes in a girl, risking her life, as harboring the cursed is forbidden.

Feb11:

Characters: Quite the strong point actually. He developed a surprising number of characters fairly deeply. Good male, female, and hermaphrodites. If anything, the villains were a little lacking, but it was more a story about discovery anyway.

Plot: Reasonable and supportive. Not exactly riveting, but very plausible and moved at a solid pace. The pacing at the end just got silly. If the last couple chapters had just been an epilogue it would have worked better. Instead, he flashed through a few hundred years in a couple chapters. You lost all connection with the characters this way and it just wasn't satisfying for me.

Style: The world building really was superb. The cities and the villages actually felt alive. That is something many show more authors get wrong. All the motivations were solid, and even the action was passably good. show less

A pretty terrific stand-alone book by the always reliable Duncan. Unfortunately, as the social info shows, this one didn't really sell all that well. People like series.