Minisode: An Interview with "A Curse So Dark and Lonely" Author Brigid Kemmerer
The Currently Reading Podcast
Meredith Schwartz
4.6 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 17 May 2019
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In today's spoiler-free mini-episode, you get to hear from author Brigid Kemmerer, who wrote "A Curse So Dark and Lonely", a book that Meredith fell in love with as soon as she read it and raved around in Episode 38.
In this "minisode", Meredith and Brigid talk about the evolution of the idea for this beautiful Beauty and the Beast re-telling, why she decided to have one of her main characters have cerebral palsy and some nuggets of info on the upcoming follow up book.
And, as always, we'll end with a book she wants to press into your hands, readers!
Minisode shownotes are not timestamped, but linked titles are below for you to peruse.
A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer
To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo
Hunted by Meagan Spooner
Stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker
Brigid's website (with links to all her social media!)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey readers, welcome to a special mini episode of the currently reading podcast. |
| 0:15.9 | As you know, Katie Cobb and I are two bookish best friends who spend time every week talking |
| 0:20.7 | about the books that we've read recently and sometimes we fall so deeply in |
| 0:25.2 | love with a book that we have to reach out to the author and see if we can ask a few of our burning |
| 0:30.0 | questions. One such book recently garnered a five-star rating from me, which is rare. It's not easy to do. |
| 0:37.0 | That book is A Curse So Dark and Lonely, and that author is Bridget Kimmerr. |
| 0:42.0 | I'm so excited to be talking to her today. |
| 0:45.0 | But first, I want to tell you just a little bit about this book. |
| 0:48.0 | And if you want to hear me gush about it even more fully and give you all the reasons that I personally loved it, be sure to listen to episode |
| 0:55.8 | number 38. |
| 0:58.0 | A curse so dark and lonely is a modern retelling of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale. |
| 1:02.6 | So the setup is, we've got Wren, |
| 1:04.7 | he's a prince and the heir to Imberfall. |
| 1:07.3 | He was cursed by a powerful witch, who by the way |
| 1:10.0 | is a great truly evil character, to repeat the autumn of his 18th year over and over |
| 1:15.7 | with the thought that he could be saved if a girl fell in love with him. |
| 1:19.8 | But that gets really tricky because at the end of each autumn he turns into a vicious beast |
| 1:25.3 | and that beast takes all kinds of forms. |
| 1:28.4 | This is actually one of my favorite parts of the book. |
| 1:30.5 | One season he might be a reptilian monster one season a winged dragon one season a huge bear-like creature |
| 1:37.0 | But every season that beast kills or injures anyone in its path even those that Wren really loves. |
| 1:45.0 | And then we have Harper, whose father's gone, her mother's dying, |
... |
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