A while back, my talented writing friend Colleen Brown gifted me a print copy of her expanded short story The Creationist’s Curse, published in May of this year and available in e- and print copies and on Kindle Unlimited.
Isn’t that gorgeous?
From the back cover:
When Evelyn Awbrey, Curator of Arcane Books and the Occult, discovers a long-lost tarot deck linked to the infamous Creationist, Elvira, ancient magic stirs–and something begins to awaken. With the autumn equinox fading, dark forces hunt the relic, eager to tear apart the city of Margoza.
Evelyn will do anything to keep it hidden. To protect her daughter. To bury the truth.
But secrets refuse to stay buried. And the deeper she digs, the clearer it becomes: the curse isn’t just in the cards–it’s in her blood.
The Creationist’s Curse is a darkly enchanting tale of forbidden magic, deadly secrets, and how far a mother will go to protect what she loves… even if it destroys her.
She can hide the relic, but she can’t outrun the Creationist’s Curse.
I loved this story the first time I read the original in the RHS anthology Meet Me at Midnight. In fact, it was my introduction to Brown’s work, the first time I realized she has the kind of prose you just want to sink into–fresh, lush, and especially sensory. It’s dark and gorgeously immersive without overwhelming you. No matter which story it is, you’re there, entirely in the scene she’s created, and the effect is as gratifyingly otherworldly as the subject of magic itself, which weaves its spells through all of Brown’s tales.
Now, in this latest version of Creationist, I appreciate how Brown has further developed certain characters in this deeply atmospheric, dark academia fantasy.
In it, readers understand more about the antagonist Nathaniel Brown/Huxley, the protagonist’s second husband and stepfather to her daughter. He is also an ancient, dark figure in disguise, as Evelyn has realized, secretly out to seize for himself the most powerful aspect of the Creationist Elvira’s tarot deck, which Evelyn works desperately to hide before it’s too late.
As Evelyn scrambles to secure the most powerful part of the deck before Nathaniel/Huxley can wrest it from her, she worries about the effect he’s had on her daughter all these years, before any of them realized his malevolence. What has he suggested to her child? What kind of influence has he wielded, when no other adult has been around? What things might he do in the years to come? Can she always be there to protect Mina?
This struck a raw chord for me; it’s a real-world anxiety many parents experience when they realize someone close to their child isn’t who they thought they were. I found this newly developed part, as such, especially effective–one of those moments in this genre that truly transcends all the fantasy, reminding us we are indeed reading a story about real human experience, the human condition.
Brown also develops Alaric’s character, an older gentleman and platonic friend to the protagonist who’s been gone for a while but is now mysteriously back, called forth, it’s suggested, for some larger purpose. It is in Alaric’s dialogue with another of Evelyn’s friends, the strong and admirable Martha, a colleague of Evelyn’s, that readers sense Alaric’s positioning as a mentor-to-be to young Mina, Evelyn’s daughter, and Brown lights a candle of hope for the larger story to come.
Finally, in this expanded version readers get to meet Evelyn’s child, little Mina, though only briefly. This precocious eight-year-old wakes at the story’s end, just before 1 am, to a strange sense of foreboding. In the surprise arrival of a crow and the abbreviated whispers between her stepfather and a man she’s never met (Alaric), Mina senses an ominous shift in her circumstances though she can barely understand any of it, and that tugged right on my heartstrings.
In short, the entirety of this expanded, newly-published version of The Creationist’s Curse is a delightful teaser, planting deeper suggestions about who these characters are plus the seeds of what’s to come for the larger narrative. This slim, gorgeous book serves, essentially, as an appetizer for a duology of dark fantasy novels with Mina at their center, and I cannot wait for Brown to publish them.
If you’re a fan of dark fantasy, dark academia, and/or lush, immersive prose, I recommend The Creationist’s Curse as well as any of Colleen Brown’s other short fiction, especially “The Crimson Trials” in Scales, Tales, and Tiaras; “What Goes Unkept” in All The Promises We Cannot Keep; and “A Potion for Forever” in Spellbound; all of which I adored. They’re all great autumnal stories to boot.
Free to download
Thank you, Colleen, for your generosity and the gift of your work to the world.
Truly, I will not be surprised to find, one day, a novel of yours on the Bestseller shelf at Barnes and Noble, and I’ll be able to brag that I knew you when…
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Before wrapping up, I also want to share my first seven days of November gratitude, in the spirit of this season of thankfulness. Each of these was inspired by the goings-on of that particular day, Nov 1 through today, Nov 7.
- Healthy parents who can still travel to visit us
- An adoring husband other women flirt with
- Extra money to commission art that fuels my creativity (more about that next week!)
- Time to devote to a specific passion project (more about that to come)
- Writer friends who both inspire and support me, with everything from feedback/moral support to simply reading and commenting on my posts. If any of you see this–thank you Gloria, Colleen, Robyn, Kathlene, and Melinda!
- Fellow Substackers to discuss the books I love with
- Mythic Moose, which is more than a side hustle–it’s a sweet family endeavor
Scanning this list reminds me, yet again, how wonderfully privileged I am, especially when it comes to the people in my life, near and far.
Photo by Ksenia Philippova on Unsplash
Happy November! As always, thank you for reading, and please share anything you’d like in the comments–a bit of thankfulness or anything else.
XOXO,
Jenn
Jennifer Shaw 