Curses and Warfare continues the story half a year after the events of Tokens and Omens, with the village of Puck’s Gulch preparing for an invasion that was foretold at the end of T&O. Zander is leading the village’s warriors, while Alexa is training to be a fortune-teller, but things aren’t going as smoothly as they hoped. For one, the adults in the village don’t completely believe or trust them, and they are being undermined at every turn. Zephyr is starting to show powers of his own -well, at least to others. Moira’s gifts mean they all have power, but it is about when and how they use them.

I wish I could say this book is better, because it does have a semi-decent plot, but much of the problems that plagued the first book – low stakes, lack of character development – were even in this book. And since I read this right after the first, I was already 150% done with that, and this book dragged on further for me. There was also the thing that is built in both books as the main obstacle, and it does not satisfy the amount of build-up to it – the climax feels pretty anti-climactic, and you are left wondering, ‘wait is that all?’. The society itself doesn’t make much sense – boys and girls BOTH undergo the quests and prove themselves equally, but patriarchal norms still exist. Women are still seen as the weaker sex – why? There’s also a Token Gay character, but that doesn’t go anywhere – in fact, that character barely does anything of note in either book. Romantic subplots also progress without much development – it is all tell, no show in the writing.

Overall, this has been a disappointing sequel to a disappointing first book.

This book was mysterious and I ate it up! Can't wait to re-read this.