'Black Heart' Curse Workers #3 by Holly Black

 Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

The stunning conclusion to the Curseworkers series finds Cassel in the most dangerous con of all and with this life on the line he may be forced to make his biggest gamble yet...
Cassel Sharpe knows he's been used as an assassin, but he's trying to put all that behind him. He's trying to be good, even though he grew up in a family of con artists and cheating comes as easily as breathing to him. He's trying to do the right thing, even though the girl he loves is inextricably connected with crime. And he's trying to convince himself that working for the Feds is smart, even though he's been raised to believe the government is the enemy.

But with a mother on the lam, the girl he loves about to take her place in the Mob and new secrets coming to light, the line between what's right and what's wrong becomes increasingly blurred. When the Feds ask Cassel to do the one thing he said he would never do again, he needs to sort out what's a con and what's truth. In a dangerous game and with his life on the line, Cassel may have to make his biggest gamble yet - this time on love.

WARNING: This review contains spoilers of all previous 'Curse Workers' books

Cassel Sharpe has made a lot of mistakes in his life. Turning his childhood best friend, and mobster princess, into a white cat to save her life was one of the worst. Ever trusting the members of his con-artist family comes a close second … but by far the worst, most stupid thing he has ever done was to get involved with the Feds. But that’s exactly where Cassel finds himself, between a rock and a hard place. Caught between the love he has for a crime boss’ daughter and the deal he has struck with the Feds, to wipe his record clean and keep his paroled mother out of prison.


Cassel knows that in this world you can’t trust anybody – least of all the ‘good guys’, who often have the most to lose. Furthermore, Cassel grew up in a family of con-artist curse-workers with tentative ties to the Zacharov worker crime family – he, of all people, has the most to lose if he jumps the fence and aligns himself with the straight and narrow. The stakes are especially high in the current political climate – with Governor Patton crusading for segregation between workers and humans, fuelled by his hatred for Cassel’s mother, who used her emotion magick against him. But Patton isn’t just a problem for workers – his extremist views could potentially ruin the worker squad the FBI has initiated, and recruited Cassel for. The feds need Patton gone, and Cassel is just the transformation worker to make him disappear. . .


Meanwhile, Lila Zacharov is being pulled deeper and deeper into her role as mobster protégé, and Cassel doesn’t know how she’ll react if she ever finds out about his budding FBI ties. Not to mention she’s still angry with Cassel for the love spell his mother set on her. . . things become even more complicated when Lila’s father kidnaps Cassel’s mother, having discovered that she stole the immortalizing Resurrection Diamond from him years ago.


And then there’s the drama at Cassel’s haven of normality, Wallingford Prep. His days as student bookie may be over, but the revelations about certain students being workers are still reverberating around the school and causing problems – and Cassel’s best friends, Sam and Daneca, are still torn apart by the findings. Not to mention the strange occurrence of a beautiful classmate approaching Cassel with a plot of blackmail that stinks to high heaven. . .


‘Black Heart’ is the third and final book in Holly Black’s paranormal young adult series, ‘Curse Workers’.


I have loved this series from the start – and I went into ‘Black Heart’ with a heavy heart, knowing that this was likely to be the last time I'd be reading about Cassel & Co.


For so many years Cassel thought he was the only dead-end in a family of talented, if ruthless, con-artist curse-workers. His mother was a great seductress, and together with Cassel’s father they worked many a ‘sweetheart scam’ with the help of her manipulative emotion magick. Brothers Barron and Cassel were always embattled in rivalry, for their father’s praise and later for the hand of childhood friend, Lila Zacharov… over the years Barron has done some awful things with his memory work – the ability to alter people’s memories and replace them with new ones (at a blowback cost to his own memory) but the worst thing he ever did was on the command of their mother. Barron took Cassel’s memories of his magical ability – the rarest worker ability of them all; transformation. Cassel has the ability to transform objects, people and himself – and his family used his remarkable skills to assassinate people, for a price and unbeknownst to Cassel, thanks to Barron’s memory work. Barron even wiped the memory of the night that Cassel turned Lila into a white cat, to save her life – replacing it with the thought that Cassel had murdered her . . . .


Throughout ‘White Cat’ and most of ‘Red Glove’, Cassel really didn’t know the extent of his power. He spent so much of his childhood regretting the fact that he was the magical void in his family; made to feel like the black sheep in his family of luck, emotion, memory and death workers that when he discovered he possessed the rarest of worker talents, he was in no way prepared for the onslaught of magick. The ‘Curse Workers’ series has really been about Cassel rediscovering his entire childhood, becoming acquainted with a power he never knew he always possessed. In ‘Black Heart’, Cassel’s discovery is ramped up a notch or two – when the Feds, Zacharov and a mystery classmate all have need of Cassel’s special transformation, and conning talents.


If you want to put it into perspective – ‘White Cat’ was about Cassel ‘remembering’ the truth of what he can do. ‘Red Glove’ was about figuring out the extent of his power, and ‘Black Heart’ feels like him appreciating the gravitas of his abilities; 

Now I know why people are afraid of transformation workers. Now I knew why they want to control me. Now I get it.
I can walk into someone's house, kiss their wife, sit down at their table, and eat their dinner. I can lift a passport at an airport, and in twenty minutes it will seem like it's mine. I can be a blackbird staring in the window. I can be a cat creeping along a ledge. I can go anywhere I want and do the worst things I can imagine, with nothing to ever connect me to those crimes. Today I might look like me, but tomorrow I could look like you. I could be you.
Hell, I'm scared of myself right now.

Holly Black’s series has always had a paranormal-noir feel to it. Despite the magic and YA aspect, ‘Curse Workers’ has read like homage to Hitchcock, Chandler and Hammett, never more than in ‘Black Heart’. For a start, there are lots of twisting, curving, red herring sub-plots ticking away in the background – acting as diversions and side-tracks in a literal conning of the reader (look over here, while Holly Black writes the crux of the plot over there). But it’s also Black’s writing that has been consistently, deliciously noir – her prose is rich and reads like a Bogart voice-over;

A girl like that, Grandad said, perfumes herself with ozone and metal filings. She wears trouble like a crown. If she ever falls in love, she'll fall like a comet, burning the sky as she goes.

Knowing that this was the potential last instalment in ‘Curse Workers’, I did have high expectations of this consistently brilliant series ending on a high note. For the most part, I was beyond satisfied. I loved the twisting, curving and multiple plots. Cassel was again, a supremely brilliant narrator walking the knife-edge between good guy and villain . . .  but some aspects of ‘Black Heart’ were a little flat.


I thought that the story about Cassel searching for Zacharov’s missing Resurrection Diamond would lead to a bigger reveals. ‘Black Heart’ is also the book when Cassel lays his feelings for Lila on the line – and I was hoping that would mean Holly Black would write more page-time for Lila. I've never warmed to Lila, I've always found her spoilt and just plain mean; and I get that she’s a mobster’s daughter, never going to be an angel. But I also had problems with Lila having dated Cassel’s brother, Barron, and the fact that he never really questioned that (even though I’m sure it has been eating at him). I just wanted to spend more time with Lila on the page, in the hopes that I'd warm to her. More than anything, I found myself warming to Cassel all over again – he’s so darn dashing and romantic when it comes to professing his feelings for Lila, and I just swooned for him all over again – and questioned, all over again, what a guy like him ever saw in a stone-cold killer like her (beyond looks?).


More than anything, finishing ‘Black Heart’ made me hope and pray that Holly Black isn’t finished with the ‘Curse Workers’ series. I was half-way through this book and loving ever word, and I just couldn’t fathom not reading more about this remarkable, political and magical universe Holly Black has created. I really, truly hope that only Cassel Sharpe’s story is (somewhat) wrapped up in ‘Black Heart’. I have my fingers firmly crossed for another book in the ‘Curse Workers’ world, this time following Barron Sharpe, because I love, love, loved the Sam/Daneca subplot in this book and I think Barron has such potential and his reformation (if it’s possible) would be fascinating to read. I absolutely, unabashedly loved this finale – even though I hope it’s not the last time we visit the ‘Curse Workers’ universe.


5/5

'Red Glove' Curse Workers #2 by Holly Black

From the BLURB:

Curses and cons. Magic and the mob.

In Cassel Sharpe's world, they go together. Cassel always thought he was an ordinary guy, until he realized his memories were being manipulated by his brothers. Now he knows the truth—he’s the most powerful curse worker around. A touch of his hand can transform anything—or anyone—into something else.

That was how Lila, the girl he loved, became a white cat. Cassel was tricked into thinking he killed her, when actually he tried to save her. Now that she's human again, he should be overjoyed. Trouble is, Lila's been cursed to love him, a little gift from his emotion worker mom. And if Lila's love is as phony as Cassel's made-up memories, then he can't believe anything she says or does.

When Cassel's oldest brother is murdered, the Feds recruit Cassel to help make sense of the only clue—crime-scene images of a woman in red gloves. But the mob is after Cassel too—they know how valuable he could be to them. Cassel is going to have to stay one step ahead of both sides just to survive. But where can he turn when he can't trust anyone—least of all, himself?

Love is a curse and the con is the only answer in a game too dangerous to lose.

For a long time Cassel Sharpe was the black sheep of his family. Cassel’s brothers, parents and grand-parents were all magic workers – ‘gifted’ with the touch of luck, emotion memory and death. Each member of his family worked for the prestigious mob family, the Zacharovs. All except Cassel. As a child he was permitted to play with Zacharov’s daughter, Lila, but it was a well known fact that Cassel would amount to nothing in the eyes of his family. He was a magical dead-end, thoroughly normal, unremarkable and . . . human.

And then Lila was murdered, and everything changed.

For a long time Cassel thought he was the murderer. He thought his family were protecting him from Zacharov’s wrath . . . he didn’t realize that his family had been working him. Stealing his memories, warping his past and his emotions. But the biggest secret of all that his family kept from him was that he was a worker. The most gifted worker of all, no less. Because Cassel works transformation. He can change any object into his liking. He can alter someone’s physical appearance; turn a girl into a cat and a man into a chair. He is the perfect assassin, and his family used him as such.

Now the truth is out. Lila lives, and Cassel knows he cannot trust his brothers, Barron and Phillip. And transformation is Cassel’s coveted magic.

For a long time Cassel thought he would amount to nothing. Now he is just starting to understand how valuable he has always been. And now he has a choice to make – will he use his powers for good, or follow in his family’s footsteps?

‘Red Glove’ is the second book in Holly Black’s twistingly brilliant ‘Curseworkers’ series.

I loved the first book ‘White Cat’ – it became an instant favourite and was proudly passed around to friends and family. I had extremely high expectations going into ‘Red Glove’, and I am happy to say that Black met each and every one of them. . .

When ‘Red Glove’ begins, Cassel is living in the fall-out of his revelations. He knows that his family betrayed him for years, his brother’s worst of all. His mother worked a love curse on Lila and now the only girl he has ever cared about has false emotions for him. His friends at the prestigious Wallingford academy, Sam and Daneca, know what he is but not what he can do . . . but the biggest discovery that Cassel is trying to contend with, is accepting his own villainy.

His brother, Barron, kept Cassel blissfully ignorant of his transformation assassinations. In ‘Red Glove’ Cassel is coming to terms with the fact that for years he has been involved in mob activities. And just because he can’t remember what he has done, does not mean his hands are any less bloodied. Cassel’s conscience suffers a crippling blow in the beginning of ‘Red Glove’, when someone close to him is murdered . . . and Cassel must admit that he all but signed the death warrant.

When Cassel is approached by the FBI to act as narc against the Zacharov family, he is somewhat tempted by the idea of a morally clean slate;

“You could have a life outside of all this,” Agent Jones says. “You could be on the right side of the law. You don’t have to protect these people, Cassel.”

I am these people, I think, but his words make me fantasize for a moment about what it would be like to be a good guy, with a badge and a stainless reputation.

Holly Black is weaving one twisted tale in her ‘Curseworkers’ series. Even Tony Soprano’s head would be spinning for all the double-dealings, double-talk and betraying. I absolutely love the sunken morals of this series. It’s fascinating to read the inner-workings of mob relations and the myriad of ways that Cassel uses the bad guys against themselves. Because Cassel doesn’t want to be bad. Sure, he does bad things – like act as his school’s bookie, break girl’s hearts and con the occasional sap. But for the most part Cassel is desperate to keep his head down and his hands clean. But as that classic quote goes; “Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.”

Cassel is lost. This series is all about reading him find his way. Cassel doesn’t have a lot of guidance on the path to redemption – his family are his biggest betrayers, the girl he loves is destined for mob royalty and even the Feds are using him for their own gains. But through all this murk, Cassel is guided by a self-imposed moral compass that will lead him true. He’s a fantastic character and a great disrepute to the old nature vs nurture debate. I love Cassel, for all his faults he is a core good guy and I can’t wait to read the ways in which he will find his way to right.

I adore Cassel, and maybe that’s why I despise the character of Lila so much. I didn’t like her in ‘White Cat’, but I half expected Cassel to realize she’s not a very nice girl and get over her. But in ‘Red Glove’ it seems Cassel is stuck in his romantic ways. He cannot see Lila for what she really is; a not very nice girl who will only drag Cassel away from his path to righteousness. She is his Lady Macbeth, and I cringe to think where she will lead him. I can’t really tell at this point where Holly Black wants to take readers with regards to Lila. Are we meant to hate her? Are we supposed to begrudgingly like her, the same as Cassel? I can’t tell, all I know is there is a car crash waiting to happen between Lila and Cassel . . .

One of the things I love most about the ‘Curseworkers’ series is how immersive it is. Holly Black has written a fantastic society and impending civil rights movement between workers and humans. In this world, workers are on the cusp of being ghettoized, named, shamed and tagged. The Government, and one zealous senator in particular, are keen to force citizens to sit physical testing which will determine if they can work magic or not. Presumably once people are ‘tagged’ as workers (not dissimilar to having to wear a Star of David on your lapel) society could go into a freefall – implementing something close to apartheid to separate the humans from the workers. Now, Black hasn’t made all these politics the main focus of Cassel’s story. The politics are always playing out in the background, and the most they impact him and his friends is via school clubs and debate teams. But I love the intricate political backdrop that makes this world all the more substantial. I love the symbolism of wearing gloves and the power behind taking them off, it’s not dissimilar to refusing to give up your seat on a bus;

Then a girl walking just ahead of us takes off her gloves. She holds up her hands. They look pale and wrinkled from being inside leather in this heat.

I blink. In my life I haven’t seen many bare female hands. It’s hard not to stare.

“Bare hands, pure heart!” the girl yells.

Beside her I see a few other people pulling off gloves with wicked smiles. One throws a pair into the sky.

My fingers itch for release. I imagine what it would be like to feel the breeze against my palms.

‘Curseworkers’ is a fantastic addition to the YA paranormal genre. Holly Black is drawing on classic mobster tales, from ‘The Godfather’ to ‘The Sopranos’. But she’s also writing a moral conundrum of Shakespearian proportions. Cassel Sharpe is in blood stepped in so far that should he wade no more returning were as tedious as going . . . and I can’t wait to read which way he goes.

5/5

'White Cat' Curse Workers #1 by Holly BLACK

Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

Cassel comes from a family of curse workers -- people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn't got the magic touch, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail -- he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts crumbling when he starts sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen.

Holly Black has created a gripping tale of mobsters and dark magic where a single touch can bring love -- or death -- and your dreams might be more real than your memories.

This is one of my favourite books of 2010.

This book, the first in Holly Black’s ‘Curse Workers’ series, is told from the perspective of 17-year-old Cassel Sharpe; schoolboy, black sheep and con artist.

Holly Black is writing about a world that is ours, but with a few differences. In this alternate reality there exist ‘workers’- individuals who can work magic. Only one in a thousand people are workers. There are any number of varying worker magicks, ranging from luck, to dreams and memory, and in the case of Cassel’s family – curse.

Cassel is the only non-worker in his family. His grandfather lost his fingers because of a blowback from a curse (blowback being the price an individual pays for dealing in magicks). And Cassel’s mother is currently in jail for working a con curse.

See, Cassel’s family aren’t just curse-workers. They’re also old-fashioned con-artists. Cassel may not have inherited the worker gene, but he certainly learnt to finesse the ‘long con’. At his boarding school Cassel is an underground bookie. He runs bets on which teachers are hooking up and how many times a year the cafeteria will serve ‘non-nut nut brownies’. He also does some forgery and fake-ID’s on the side. Cassel is one cool-cat, sort of a modern Ferris Bueller. He’s a bad-boy with a quick wit and is instantly likable. But just as quickly as you fall for him, Cassel forces you to reconsider when he confesses his greatest sin:

Here’s the essential truth about me: I killed a girl when I was fourteen.

So begins Cassel’s twisted journey to the truth. All this we learn in the opening chapter. And it only gets better from there.

In the opening chapter Cassel finds himself on the roof of his school dormitory. He’s not particularly surprised – when he was younger he was a chronic sleepwalker (called somnambulism). And besides, Cassel is half convinced the resurgence of his somnambulism is due to his recurrent feelings of guilt – because he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago. Except Cassel can’t remember killing her. He was found with the body, a smile on his bloodied face, but everything else is a blank.

Surprisingly enough, learning the truth of Cassel’s murderous past doesn’t retract from the likability of his character. Even when Cassel himself tries hard to convince you otherwise.

It takes a lot of effort to pretend you’re something you’re not. I don’t think about what music I like; I think about what music I should like. When I had a girlfriend, I tried to convince her I was the guy she wanted me to be. When I’m in a crowd, I hang back until I can figure out how to make them laugh. Luckily, if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s faking and lying.
I told you I’d done plenty wrong.

The above is almost Dexter-esque for its portrayal of a psychopath trying to fit in. But as the story progresses, you begin to realize that the person Cassel thinks he is, the Cassel his family know and the Cassel readers are getting to know are three very different people. Cassel has a skewed view of himself, and both his and his family’s interpretation of him and his past have completely twisted the young man he actually is.

Cassel is not a bad guy – no matter how much he implores readers to be wary of trusting him. Cassel is the black sheep of his family. He is runt to his two older brothers, Phillip and Barron and reluctant accomplice to his mother’s mad cons. He comes from bad stock, but isn’t bad himself. He loves the con, but only because it was how he fit into his family and felt close to his parents.

The story starts to get dark and twisted when Cassel’s sleepwalking episodes become linked to his brother, Barron’s, failing memory and Cassel’s belief that Lila is haunting him in the form of a white cat. Suddenly Cassel starts wondering if his memories are his own, if he really did kill Lila and who in his family could have stolen his past.

Holly Black is one-half of the writing-duo responsible for ‘The Spiderwick Chronicles’ (with Tony DiTerlizzi). I've never read the infamous ‘Spiderwick Chronicles’, but after ‘White Cat’ I may have to. I have completely fallen in love with Black’s writing and masterful storytelling.

Holly Black writes some truly spectacular flashbacks. So succinct and enticing are these flashbacks that they read like stand-alone short-stories. For example, the few paragraphs in which Cassel recounts his first ‘con’, opening with the words;

The first time I realized I had a talent for crime was after Mom took me out – just me – for a cherry slushy.

Black’s writing is completely lush. The storyline itself is a warped fare as Cassel’s journey takes him on a trip down memory(loss) lane. Cassel is a fantastically convoluted character – and Black really makes readers work hard to marry Cassel’s past to the young man we are reading and come to our own conclusion about the content of his character.

I loved this book. I could not put it down! I have fallen head-over-heels in love with Cassel and Holly Black’s writing. I can’t wait for ‘Curse Workers’ book #2, ‘Red Glove’, tentatively scheduled for a 2012 release (too far away!!!)

This is one of my favourite books of 2010. Add it to your TBR list – you will not be disappointed!

5/5

UK/US cover