Book 1 in The Curse of the Fates | Reviewed by CJ | Rating: 5/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 📖
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read The Washwoman at the River’s End yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
OPENING HOOK
I picked up this 511-page friend and finished it in a day and a half, going back and forth between the paperback and my Kindle, and I’m still thinking about the last few chapters. Every time I thought I had a handle on what was going on, the book handed me more information and pulled the ground out from under me. If you’ve just finished it too, pull up a chair, because we have a lot to discuss.
THE FULL SUMMARY — SPOILERS INCLUDED
Bea has been sentenced by the fates to spend her immortality at the River’s End, washing the clothes of the soon-to-be-dead and singing them into the After before the garments float off into the black mist. Six years ago she escaped her warded confinement and slaughtered six people, one of them being Marsaili, the fiancée of Brennen. The added punishment of that escape was being chained to the rock (on the River Bàsail) with a cuff that has dug deep into her ankle over the years. She freezes, she starves, and she cannot die; she’s been tortured this way for a hundred years now, though before the chain she could roam far enough to gather soft moss for bedding and other small comforts.
Brennen is a Dìdeanair of the highest rank (An Àrd), and loyal general to Cailleach, the Cutter (the fate who cuts the threads, sister of the Weaver who weaves the life threads, and the Measurer who decides how long those threads will be). Every Samhain for six years, he has gone to his beloved Marsaili’s grave to beg Ban-dia a’ Bhàis, the goddess of death, to help him find the Washwoman. This year the goddess listens; the Blade of Binding appears before him. After he vows on his life to kill the monster who killed his betrothed, he seals the pact with blood drawn by the blade, and it disappears into the earth. As he’s leaving, the Cutter sends for him. Women are going missing across the kingdom, and she wants the Washwoman secured to ensure she doesn’t become one of them. She gives him more dàn (symbols of magical abilities) to make him more powerful, and admits she tried to cut Bea’s thread a century ago, and could not. She tasks him with figuring out why she can’t die, and then use that knowledge to kill her. She not-so-subtly mentions that his siblings would die if he fails, but he’s already sworn a vow on his soul to the goddess of death, so he’s feeling pretty motivated on all sides. Lovely woman, the Cutter.
Meanwhile some of Bea’s visions have started going wrong. For a hundred years she’s only heard a name on the wind as she’s shown a face and cause of death, but now some are pulling her into a life that’s being lived, before the clothes show up or a name is given. She can talk to them and touch things, but she only gets a few moments before she’s pulled back to the river. The timing is odd considering the missing women and Brennen’s arrival, and it all points to something outside of the natural order causing these deaths because they feel wrong to her in every way.
Brennen hates the Washwoman with every fiber of his being at first, and he sets up camp just out of her reach where he can observe. After days of watching her and conversations with the people in the nearby town Dalbàsail, he starts to slowly doubt everything he knows of her. Theo the barkeep is someone he trusts, and he confides that he never believed the gossip about Bea. When he was a child, he wandered up there to ask where his sweets were hidden, and she was nothing but kind and gentle with him. Harold, on the other hand, is certain she appeared in the village to caused his wife’s death, although Theo doesn’t buy that since she had been sick a long time (and the description Harold gives Brennen does not match Bea at all). The lore says she’s a monster, but Brennen watches how she treats children and grieves for the people who pass through her magic, and he can’t make that fit with the woman that violently killed Marsaili.
When Harold takes him aside to show him an old family book of magic, his guilt and confusion hit deeper. There’s talk of old harvest and healing magic with simple spells, but another part horrifies him as he continues to read. They spent decades murdering and torturing Bea over and over is gruesome ways trying to permanently kill her, and it makes him sick to think of those things being done to the woman he knows. It’s illegal to own the book, but Harold is desperate to help Brennen kill the Washwoman and thinks giving him the information is worth the risk. Legend says that her crime was killing her lover and best friend when she found out they had betrayed her, but Bea tells him the true version – she did not harm them at all. She saw her best friend’s clothes in the river to be washed (the river itself washed them before her punishment) and pulled them out trying to spare her from death. We don’t know it yet, but her being able to remove the clothes from being washed is how the Cutter knew what/who she really was. Since she could not be killed, Cailleach tethered her there to keep her out of the way until she could kill her.
The Cutter eventually finds out Brennen is softening toward Bea, so she sends him home on leave to see his family with Garrick, one of her closest and most trusted Dìdeanair. Luckily for Brennen, he’s a close childhood friend, so they go to spend time with Brennen’s younger siblings. While there, Garrick tells him an old tale about how the Fates are meant to step down every so many years, with three new Fates ascending in their place. The Epoch is meant to be that celebration of that transition, but with Cailleach refusing to step down repeatedly, murdering those potential replacements instead, the Epoch has twisted into a nightmare of monsters because the natural order has been thrown out of balance. He further realizes that even if none of those alternate stories were true, the Cutter could protect her people from the monsters if she really wanted to. They talk of the theory that magic was stolen from everyone, and the dedication symbols the fates bestow upon every person born may really cut them off from the more powerful magic of the land, instead tying them directly to the Fates. While discussing these stories, Garrick confides that he is a part of the rebellion himself. The more Brennen turns everything over, the more those claims make sense, and he begins to turn against the Cutter he’s served so faithfully all his life. I love seeing a character assess the evidence in front of him logically instead of clinging to what he’s always believed out of fear, terrified to admit he was mislead and he could be on the wrong side of this fight.
He races back to Bea before stopping in town, which is for the best since there are more Dìdeanair stationed there to report back to Cailleach, who ordered him not to return yet. He learns that Bea has been haunted by the ghosts of the missing women every night as they wander screaming for help beside the black mist, being denied entry as their minds fracture and decay. The Cutter has been killing them out of the natural order, and as a result they can’t enter the After as they should. Bea eventually finds a ward to keep them at rest until they can figure out how to get them in, but that’s just one problem solved(ish) for now, among many.
Since he arrived, Brennen has been asking why she killed those six people, and she’s refused to answer. He assumed it was because she didn’t want to face it, and partly it was, but mostly she just doesn’t remember doing most of it. All she can recall is the blood on her hands and the horror of slicing Marsaili’s throat after Marsaili’s family had been set on fire. Eventually he grabs Bea’s arm and asks the right question, triggering the part of her curse that forces her to answer a question. His asks her to tell him what happened that night. She fully relives it and finally sees that she wasn’t in control of her body. The Cutter swooped down with her dragon, Athair, who burned Marsaili’s family, as Cailleach took control of Bea to make her kill Marsaili.
Throughout their time together, there is one thing to note: When Bea and Brennen touch while in the water, some of his dàn transfer to her. They don’t know how or why, but they work out that it only happens in the water. She eventually learns how to stop it, but not before she picks up warmth, truth detection, warning of danger and surefootedness. I don’t recall an explanation for why, but whatever reason they are fully restored to him in the end of the book (now that I think about it, I don’t know if she kept them also, or lost them. Questions for book two, I guess). Anyway, back to the plot.
With the Cutter’s actions and motivations exposed, Bea has most of what she needs to break her curse, and Brennen rushes off to gather the rest as the dreaded Epoch begins. They quickly float the bundle of items into the After as required, and her chain disappears. The curse has been lifted. They’re about to celebrate when the dragon that’s been circling overhead this whole time grabs Bea and moves straight into the After. Brennen dives headfirst to follow knowing it will probably kill him, but it’s a beautiful display of devotion and love. They land in a dark place on a glittery beach where the river water turns into sparkling sand. He tries to catch up in a panic as the dragon approaches Bea, only to stop when he realizes the dragon is bowing to her. It’s her dragon, Eiridh (affectionately called Lolly), and she’s been guarding her from above this whole time.
THE TWIST WE DIDN’T SEE COMING
Where do I even start? Once they’re in the After, the song from Bea’s visions starts up again and a woman walks over carrying a dagger Brennen recognizes. It’s Ban-dia a’ Bhàis, the goddess of death. She smiles like they’re old friends and says he did well delivering Bea to her. This is confusing until the moment her skin touches his, and he remembers everything.
191 years ago, he was part of a plan to overthrow the Cailleach, who was hunting down and killing potential replacements so she wouldn’t have to step down. He, the goddess and Theo planned to hide the next Cutter, with an immortality that wouldn’t show itself until the Cutter tried to kill her (which is why Bea’s thread wouldn’t cut). The magic to pull it off needed the sacrifice of a bargain, so Brennen went to Earth and vowed to protect her, and Theo agreed to help however was needed.
Theo is Brennen’s brother. He’s An Treòraiche, the Guide who brings the dead to Brennen to be judged. Brennen is Am Breitheamh, the god of judgement. When he remembers, he’s wrapped in a shimmering web of light, as all the dàn Bea took reappear on him, and a new one shows up on his palm exactly where one appeared on hers: the judge’s sigil. I’m still not certain why she has the judge’s sigil as well, but I have my suspicions. Bea is also revealed to be a Fate; the next Cutter to be specific, if she accepts the duties. I have to tell you that she tries to kneel before Brennen when she realizes who he is, and he stops her with “you will never kneel for me, not now, not ever.” Swoon. He also adds that if anyone will be on their knees it will be him. Sigh.
Suddenly his insistence on justice over cruelty, his internal struggle with falling for the woman who murdered his beloved, and his rock solid views on good and bad all click into place. He is just, and his view of the world as Brennen was influenced by his true identity as the judge. Now that Bea and Brennen have a bit more information, it’s up to Bea to decide whether she will take her rightful place as the cutter, or allow Cailleach to continue her reign of terror unchecked, because the Weaver and Measurer cannot ascend before the Cutter does. The certainty of Death must be in place before life can be created and decided. As we all know her to be strong and brave, we’re not surprised to hear her say yes. Brennen refuses to go back to his judgement duties right away, accepting all consequences of staying with Bea even if it means forfeiting his position and immortality. Book two is going to be a wild ride, I suspect!
BEST PART OF THIS BOOK
The big picture. So much is going on beneath the surface, and the book keeps showing how misguided our opinions and beliefs can be. We live by the truths we were taught, and those truths drive everything we do. Finding out that reality isn’t what you were fed is earth-shattering, and it’s deeply unsettling to confront the lies you’ve believed, and that thread runs through the whole book.
The way Bea and Brennen fall in love was beautiful, and you can feel it as they fall. The atmosphere reminded me a little of Rachel Gillig’s books. And I’ve been learning Scottish Gaelic for three years, so all the Gaelic and Scots woven into the story was a lot of fun for me.
WORST PART OF THIS BOOK
I don’t have one. It was a little slow to start, but only because there’s so much to set up. I’m still sorting everything I just learned at the end into something I understand, and I think there are even more little pieces I haven’t put together yet, so I may be back to update this review when I reread it.
THE STEAM RATING BREAKDOWN
🔥🔥🔥 — Open door and explicit, but only near the end.
- Sex scenes? Yes, and they’re explicit. There’s an earlier hands-on scene before the main event that isn’t super long, but it’s enough to qualify.
- How central is the romance? There are a lot of lusty thoughts leading up to the explicit scenes, and the romance is dreamy, but I would say it’s balanced well with the rest of the plot. Central, but not overpowering.
THE ENDING EXPLAINED — SATISFIED OR DISAPPOINTED?
I’m still digesting everything. When Brennen chooses to stay with Bea, the goddess says there are things he doesn’t know yet and things she can’t tell them, and warns of coming danger. Brennen says he’ll accept whatever the consequences are to remain at Bea’s side, even if he never gets his duties or his immortality back. It’s hard to second-guess that level of commitment, but the goddess is obviously trying to imply more despite being unable to directly tell him more.
Once their decisions are made, she gives them a job (okay, maybe a couple of jobs arranged into a bit of a lengthy quest): find Bea’s sisters in fate, the other two women who will ascend, and destroy their dedication symbols so they can reconnect with the world magic and be cut off from the Cutter. They’re given information about travelling through the After and completing the trials of three, so they can then be granted passage to the place life begins, where the one destined to weave can be found, from there moving onto where the pain dwells to find the Measurer. Brennen knows that the fairy pools are where life begins, but does not know where the pain dwells. She assures him they’ll learn more as they go and they’re left with a parting warning that if they die within the After, their lives are over. And so begins that journey in book two, I assume.
The epilogue takes us five days in the past to Theo, who’s been hiking to the fairy pools where he sees a beautiful woman he’s instantly drawn toward. I’m pretty sure she’s his love interest and the Weaver, but who knows if I’m right or where that story will go. I cannot wait for the next book.
WOULD WE REREAD IT?
Absolutely. I plan to reread it before the next book comes out. There’s no release date announced yet, but I’ll be ready.
WHO IS THIS FOR
Anyone who loves a Celtic setting and rich lore, with magic and tragedy and twists that reveal themselves in their own due time.
WHERE TO GET THIS BOOK
📖 Physical Book
Amazon US |Amazon CA |Bookshop.org
🎧 Audiobook
Not available on Audio currently
📱 Ebook
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📚 More from The Curse of the Fates
Book 1 — The Washwoman at the River’s End | Reviewed by CJ | ⭐ 5/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 — you’re here now!
Book 2 — Coming Soon
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Plot Twisted. 🔥
📖 | Series: The Curse of the Fates Book 1 | Genre: Romantasy | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
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