A curse dark as gold…

This book is a retelling of the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin.

The story is set is a small village called Stirwaters. Charlotte Miller’s father dies leaving her a mill. She and her sister try everything to get the dying mill running and make some money out of it to make ends meet. But some problem or the other keeps coming up. One day she learns that her father had taken a huge loan for the mill which no one knew about and the loan repayment date is coming closer.

Enter a man who promises to spin gold from straw. She agrees because she is desperate and has no other way to replay the loan. As time passes and some problem or the other keeps coming up, this stranger keeps popping up at the right time.

The author has brought the life of the Millers in this small town to life. The writing is beautiful, almost flowery. I found the story quite stretched at places. I think it’s mostly because I already knew the story and I just wanted to get to the part where the man asks for her baby in return of a favor. The author took her sweet time getting there.

Also I did not like the character of Randall so much. As Charlotte’s husband I expected him to stick around. But I thought he kind of gave up which was really disappointing for me. But yeah, in the end he did redeem himself. I loved Rosie, Charlotte’s sister. She was lively, vivacious and interesting to read about. Another problem with the book was the author did not mention the ages of the characters which was really confusing at times.

But In spite of everything the end was so worth it. A perfect nail-biting suspense. The curse was a really good twist and kept things interesting. I don’t have any complaints about the writing, it was beautiful, but this book could have been better with a little tightening of the story.

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