Why Love?

One could argue I simply take the blue curtains debate to new—possibly unnecessary—heights in my unrelenting desire to add meaning to every choice I make when writing a book. Does it really matter that Reghen loves lemon tarts? Yes, it does because the man she loves smells of lemon with a hint of cinnamon.

Yes, I'm aware it's a detail of great insignificance in the scope of the story, but I love giving meaning to otherwise meaningless details, as I believe those overlooked aspects of a story are the things that breathe life to it. Is there a more beautiful thing than a book that feels alive?

However, today's yapping session has a question in mind. A question I sought to explore within the pages of CURSE OF DEATH, with the story that existed before and the one that exists after the events we'll read about.

Literary analysis apart, today I want to talk about why I used love—or the lack of it—as such a central theme around CURSE OF DEATH.

If you aren't familiar (likely because I haven't made up my mind one synopsis), CURSE OF DEATH follows Reghen Nehtvallan in her quest for vengeance. To make a long story short, there was a war, and during it, Reghen fell in love with Gavel Gris. A man of equal standing as they are both the Crown Prince and Princess of their respective courts, but where Reghen is familiar with loving and being loved, Gavel was starved of it.

The prince sees love as something of finite quantity, and such, the more people Reghen loved, then he was loved by her in a lesser degree. In his desire to have more and more of her love, Gavel came up with a scheme to kill those she loved, and he made the fatal mistake of starting with her younger sister.

That is the backstory for CURSE OF DEATH.

The book starts 400 years after that war ended and after her sister had been killed. Throughout those years, Reghen had been hunting down each and every person who had a finger in the death of her sister. She's close to killing Gavel when she discovers his (and his father's) plan to release a forgotten God from his prison, threatening to destroy the world as she knows it.

So, why love?

The answer is both simple and complicated. I'm a woman, so I know better than anyone how love—or the illusion of it—has killed thousands of women across the world every single day. Love is used as a mask for abuse, as a way to wither the strength and beauty of a woman until she's a crumpled-up flower.

Love is a weapon that can be used for good and evil. It is the thing that drove Gavel into betrayal—the one person to ever love him—and equally, it's love that pushes Reghen into avenging her sister. It's love that makes her so fearful of not being a ruler worthy of her people. It's love that makes Reghen act in secrecy to not put those she loves in harm's way.

And yes, there is romance in CURSE OF DEATH, but to me, the romance is secondary to everything Reghen faces and goes through because of love.

I wanted CURSE OF DEATH to be a cautionary tale when it comes to Gavel, and a happy ending when it comes to Reghen (even if before happiness she faces more hardships, oops).