Love is a Curse
On sale
1st May 2025
Price: £9.99
‘A modern Gothic novel unlike any other, about love and loss echoing through the ages. Sad, sweet, funny and hopeful’ — Emilia Hart (author of Weyward)
From acclaimed author Keith Stuart, author of A Boy Made of Blocks and The Frequency of Us, comes a daring and unique story of heartbreak and hope.
A single sentence was all it took to define Cammy’s life. They came as her beloved artist aunt was dying, a teenage Cammy standing by her bedside: ‘Did your mother ever tell you about the curse?’
Cammy is warned that the women in her family are destined always to lose the one they love. She thinks nothing of it – until the day when, in her late twenties, her new boyfriend is hit by a car. Convinced she is to blame, Cammy begins to investigate the one-hundred-and-fifty-year story of a family that is both ordinary and remarkable, tragic and beautiful.
But is the curse real, or is there an answer lurking in the letters, diaries and paintings of generations of women whose hearts were broken?
‘An original yet entirely universal story – sweeping in its scale, yet sweet-tempered, moving, and just the right amount of spooky. I loved it’ — Samuel Burr (author of The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers)
‘Love Is a Curse uses Gothic so cleverly. I binged the ending in one sitting and was absolutely gripped (and may have had a tear or two in my eye!)’ — Sarah Brooks (author of The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wasteland)
From acclaimed author Keith Stuart, author of A Boy Made of Blocks and The Frequency of Us, comes a daring and unique story of heartbreak and hope.
A single sentence was all it took to define Cammy’s life. They came as her beloved artist aunt was dying, a teenage Cammy standing by her bedside: ‘Did your mother ever tell you about the curse?’
Cammy is warned that the women in her family are destined always to lose the one they love. She thinks nothing of it – until the day when, in her late twenties, her new boyfriend is hit by a car. Convinced she is to blame, Cammy begins to investigate the one-hundred-and-fifty-year story of a family that is both ordinary and remarkable, tragic and beautiful.
But is the curse real, or is there an answer lurking in the letters, diaries and paintings of generations of women whose hearts were broken?
‘An original yet entirely universal story – sweeping in its scale, yet sweet-tempered, moving, and just the right amount of spooky. I loved it’ — Samuel Burr (author of The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers)
‘Love Is a Curse uses Gothic so cleverly. I binged the ending in one sitting and was absolutely gripped (and may have had a tear or two in my eye!)’ — Sarah Brooks (author of The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wasteland)
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Reviews
A fabulous story of heartbreak and hope . . . brilliantly woven
A modern Gothic novel unlike any other, about love and loss echoing through the ages. Sad, sweet, funny and hopeful.
Love Is a Curse uses Gothic so cleverly. All the elements are here - the nested stories, a haunted church, fate, curses, and storms - but it plays with them brilliantly, and in unexpected ways. I binged the ending in one sitting and was absolutely gripped (and may have had a tear or two in my eye!).
An original yet entirely universal story - sweeping in its scale, yet sweet-tempered, moving, and just the right amount of spooky. I loved it.