This review is the outcome of the author, James Emmi, giving me a free copy of his book in exchange for a review. Going into “Hagen’s Curse” I didn’t know what to expect. I’m not usually a fan of mid-evil times in writing, but I was pleasantly surprised.
To give an idea of what the book is about, he’s the back of the book jacket: In the medieval town of Hagen, there stands the most famous bakery in all of Germany: Heckler Delights. When the reclusive beekeeper Anika Everhart becomes the first person ever to challenge the bakery, shocking the town with an extraordinary new recipe, she is arrested for suspicions of witchcraft. Hans Heckler, the wicked heir to Heckler Delights, has claimed that Anika is a servant of the devil. If she cannot overcome his scheme and prove her innocence, she will lose more than a mere recipe. She will lose her life.
The characters are very well thought out, especially John and Anika. This review will be spoiler-free, but their story was a very interesting "A" plot. The story overall has an interesting twist on the kinds of things you see written in this time period. I'm not used to reading medieval stories about rival bakeries.
The story was interesting and gripped me in, but I did see a few problems. For one thing, the book was too short. There’s an "A" plot, but it didn’t really feel like there was much of a B plot. There were some places I felt could be fleshed out a bit more. The major part of the book was explained perfectly on the back of the book, but there wasn't a story outside of that main one. I'm a sucker for a good "B" plot and that was missing from this story.
Without spoilers, I will say, The ending bothered me a little bit. While it did bother me, I think that was the point. It didn’t go the way you expected and it was a real-life version of events. Meaning, it was realistic for it to end the way it did. I can't go too far into details but let's just say, a lot of the characters have a downward character arch.
Lastly, this complaint only works for the audiobook (which is how I read it). The narrator felt a little stale, but seeing as how the author was the one reading it and not a professional voice actor, he did a great job. You get used to it as you continue as well. It didn’t bother me for long.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone who enjoys real-life books set in medieval times as opposed to fantasy.
I give it a 3.8 out of 5 (I wanna give it 4 stars but it's too short)
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