The Cursed Towers

By Kate Forsyth
Read: July 2009
Rating: Comfortable

So, Lachlan and Iseult have won their throne! But now the land is covered in Bright Soldiers and the coasts are being raided by Fairgean. Maya the Ensorcellor is at large, and her followers are planning an insurrection. The Righ goes to war.

There’s isn’t really a single arch holding this book together. It’s more, “This is what happens from date A to date B.” Or, “This is how they fought off So & So.” That said, I still love the characters and the telling, etc, etc.

I love these books, but now I know it wasn’t just me having a bad memory that made the middle ones a bit tough to follow. The timeline in Cursed Towers is a long one–something like two and a half years. This wouldn’t be a problem except that Kate Forsyth doesn’t orient us properly when we jump ahead. It’s always quite a few pages before you get something like ‘six months since the battle at Dun Eidean…’ which you weren’t even thinking about because the section is a different set of characters entirely.

I find that I like Iseult more and more as the books go on. I’m less enamoured of Lachlan than I was before–I see his faults as real detriments to his ability to rule. His wife, on the other hand, is everything you could want in a queen.

Isabeau… Isabeau is still growing up in the school of hard knocks. Fearful for the safety of Maya’s daughter Bronwen (Lachlan fault: not seeing that showing affection for his niece is the best way to keep her from rising against him.), Isabeau takes the baby and her horse Lasair and rides away into the mountains. She goes to the Tower of Roses and Thorns, her family’s keep. There she patches together a family life… of sorts. She is Bronwen’s guardian, and cook and cleaner for the household. Her mother Ishbel has awakened, but she is effectively a stunted young woman unwilling to face any hardships head-on. Feld, the sorcerer caring for the castle, is also a dependent as he is too involved in his books to remember much else. Isabeau also goes to the tribe where Iseult was raised and begins to learn the arts of their people. All of this makes Isabeau a much more responsible person, much more focused on practical things. She’s aware of her shortcomings.

But she still sucks at this ‘love’ thing. I used to root for Isabeau and Dide. He’s had a crush on her for ages. Now she’s turning him away with the ‘witches don’t marry or have sex because we need to focus on things beyond the body’ line. Which still sounds like garbage. But even worse, Dide isn’t handling it terribly well. So I’m a bit disillusioned.

And what about Lilanthe, who has been crushing on Dide? She’s much better off without him.

If you wonder why a series that was supposed to be 3 books turned into 6, don’t. There’s still PLENTY here.

After all, Maya’s still wandering free…