Curse Painter by Jordan Rivet

The blurb:

Art is magic. Art is a curse.

Briar can curse with the flick of a paintbrush. Her paintings maim, bewitch, and—most effectively of all—destroy. But Briar doesn’t want to hurt people anymore. She has fled her family’s deadly curse business to start a new life peddling nonlethal jinxes and petty revenge.

Briar’s destructive powers catch the eye of a charismatic young outlaw called Archer, who hires her to help him save a kidnapped friend from a ruthless baron. Briar thinks this is her chance to make amends for her crimes, but the family business won’t let her go so easily.

When her violent past jeopardizes Archer’s rescue mission, Briar must confront the dark arts she left behind—and decide what she’s willing to destroy in order to be good.

The review:

Jordan Rivet’s Curse Painter was the first book from this year’s SPFBO that I read from beginning to end. A large part of that because, well… I couldn’t put it down once I’d started. It has that intrinsic “bingeable” quality to it.

Curse Painter is the kind of book that takes a very simple, very appealing concept and has fun with it without letting things get too complicated. Briar is our titular curse painter — trained for it ever since she could hold a brush, and ridiculously talented at what she does. But she’s also, uh, unlicensed. Which puts her in a bit of a pickle. See, curse painters are dangerous. A well-painted mural can bring down the walls of a castle or drive a town mad. While Briar doesn’t particularly like what she does, it’s all she knows. Which is why her life involves moving from town to town, taking small under-the-radar jobs that can’t really hurt anyone.

Until things inevitably go wrong, obviously.

This is where Archer comes in. A character who doesn’t stray too far from the Robin Hood archetype, Archer is… well, he’s pure cheese. Here, just check out how he introduces himself:

“Good evening.” He gave a bow fit for a duchess. “I am called Archer. I’m an accomplished thief and brigand. I serve the blade, the coin, and the open road. I have come to offer you an opportunity to escape your sordid circumstances and embark on the adventure of a dozen lifetimes.”

Aye, that’s Archer alright. But funnily enough this was one of the things that made this book work for me. It’s so comfortable with what it’s trying to be, and I found that endearing. It doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel. You saw the romance coming a mile off? Who cares! Briar has to endear herself to Archer’s motley gang of outlaws? I don’t care if I’ve seen it a million times before — it’s brilliant! Curse Painter embraces all of those beloved tropes and well-worn paths, and I found it to be an enjoyable book because of it.

However, as much as I enjoyed myself… I did have my complaints. And frustratingly, those complaints are tied into some of the aspects that I really enjoyed. That sounds contradictory, I know, but you know how it is. Feelings on a book can be complicated.

While this book is so very readable, and while a lot of that is down to simplicity of the prose… I did think that some of the description could have flowed a little better. I’d think that a point was laboured, or that the description of a scene took it from “emotive” to “melodramatic”. While the narrative thread was always strong enough to pull me along, at several points I was jolted from my immersion because of the word choice or some repetitive phrasing.

In terms of the characterisation, I loved that Rivet took the time to add some depth to her main characters even as they lean on known archetypes. Briar’s internal dilemma over how to be a good person while practicing an inherently “bad” profession (while a classic storyline) got me invested. Additionally, her relationship with her parents brings forward a very personable side to her character. But I just wish there was… more. Which almost feels like an unfair criticism, because Curse Painter very clearly tries to dig beyond the surface level for its characters in terms of motivations and the reasonings behind them. As much as I enjoyed reading about Briar and Archer — and perhaps as a side-effect of the story’s relative simplicity — it did sometimes feel that there could have been another dimension to them that would have elevated the story.

But hey, in the end, I thought Curse Painter was for sure a good book. If you’re looking for something fun and which has that imaginative-yet-familiar balance to it, this is definitely one you should check out.

Unfortunately, Curse Painter will not be selected as my semi-finalist in this year’s SPFBO. But it’s well worth a look.

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