The Cure for the Curse

Patrick Vaughn
Treble Heart Books (2006)
ISBN 1932695419
Reviewed by Nicole LeBoeuf (age 16) for Reader Views (2/07)

Patrick Vaughn’s first published novel, “A Cure for the Curse,” is a suspenseful and fast-paced fantasy filled with bold and dangerous characters that will keep you enthralled. A whole new plausible world is opened up to the reader. Although Vaughn has always written his vampire tales, this is the first time one is seeing print. “A Cure for the Curse” will hopefully be the first of many. Vaughn works at a library for blind children in Arizona, where he has lived all his life. To him, “Arizona is home: a young, diverse state trying to discover itself as it grows too quickly.” His style of writing is reflecting in that quote as his characters in “A Cure for the Curse” are.

“A Cure for the Curse” puts your idea of a vampire into a new light. The vampires in Vaughn’s tale are fighting their curse and trying to save other’s who have been recently affected. Teenage Warrenna has just found out she is one of them and destined to do great things for her people. Catapulted into a new school in a new state, she is forced to attempt to fit in while keeping her secret by controlling her craving for blood. But her secret comes out when Thomas takes an interest in her after discovering that her paintings are like snapshots of the dreams he’s always had. Warrenna feels strangely at ease around him, and they soon find that he affects her vampirism: the level of the curse in her blood goes down after being around him. It seems that fate had brought them and their strange gifts together for a reason – to cure the curse.

Although “A Cure for the Curse” was written with young adults in mind first and foremost, they will not be the only ones to enjoy the novel. Unlike most young adult books, it is not overly simple and predictable. The dreams Thomas experiences can be so complex as to be confusing, and few are explained later on. The novel has many surprising twists and between those and the fast-paced action; you will not be left bored while you still have pages left to turn.

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