A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce.

Drawn in immediately by the cover image, I found myself captured by the intricate world I entered and the strength of the characterizations.

Charlotte Miller’s father has just died and she finds herself as a young woman with a younger sister caring for the family’s woolen mill.  Without a male running the business, she fights for respect among the other millers and within the textile industry.  Threatened with ruin when a mortgage on the mill is discovered, she turns to a strange man who simply appears and offers to spin straw into golden thread in return for her deceased mother’s ring.  Charlotte fights to ignore the strangeness of the mill, the string of deaths of boys in her family, and her own growing knowledge that something dark and horrible happened in her family’s past. 

I am often not a fan of retellings of tales like Rumplestiltskin as teen novels, but this one really works, primarily because the setting of a woolen mill is so vibrant and moves the story along a different line.  Bunce has created not only one strong heroine, but the younger sister serves as a foil for Charlotte, allowing readers a second strong female character to enjoy.  But neither girl is a saint.  They both have their own problems, personality quirks, and their own responses to desperate times.  It is their humanity that breathes such life into them.

This book engulfs the reader, spinning such a tale of curses, death, courage, cunning and strength.  Bunce has created one of the best fantasies of the year with her first book.  I look forward to seeing what her next one will bring us.

Highly recommended for lovers of fantasy and dark tales.  Don’t sell this as a retelling of Rumplestiltskin, rather let the cover speak for the treats that await inside.