“Interfere with power you cannot attain, and its claws will never hesitate to strike.”
Jonathan Neves Mayers shows off his incredibly wild imagination in Cazorra’s Curse, a short but unforgettable prequel novella introducing the chaotic world of Vevin Song. It’s a story of grief, vengeance, legacy, retribution, conflict and betrayal that sinks its dark roots into your heart and packs more twists and turns than a brutal corkscrew roller coaster.
Taking place many years before the start of Vevin Song, this prequel novella gives a deeply fascinating and slightly disturbing look into the complex history of the Vevin people before their invasion into the human realms in book 1 of the series. Through the eyes of two young and scarred Vevin women, we are drawn straight into their multi-dimensional world full of flying creatures, telepathic communication, floating towers, and dangerous energy blades. Despite their seemingly clashing motivations and backstories, they strike up the most unlikely of alliances and set off on a mission to root out the last remaining threat to their civilization; they are fully aware that it’s a suicide mission, but they are ready to die fighting for what they believe in.
Now, even though I was already familiar with many of the in-world concepts and terms from reading Vevin Song, I can’t deny that the action-packed start to Cazorra’s Curse was a bit overwhelming. Neves Mayers has an incredible gift for creating completely new cultures/races with their own rich history, lore and unique ways of life, but his ‘sink or swim’ approach to the worldbuilding can either feel deeply immersive or uncomfortably disorienting depending on your reading preferences and level of trust and patience. It helps that there’s an extensive glossary and character list included at the back (which I highly recommend checking out even before starting the novella), but I personally would have preferred for some of that context to be woven into the narrative a bit more organically.
That said, both Cazorra and Livai immediately proved to be extremely fascinating protagonists, and their strong personalities, deep-rooted convictions, and powerful emotions really kept me grounded throughout all the chaos and information overload that we are exposed to in Cazorra’s Curse. The way that Neves Mayers unfolds their tragic personal backstories and interweaves their inner conflicts with the larger external conflicts was so masterfully done, creating a sense of looming dread that just kept me on my toes the entire way through. And don’t get me started on the moment when the title’s meaning becomes clear; I don’t know if I was more excited or heartbroken by all the revelations.
The level of layered world building and rich character-/relationship development that Neves Mayers is able to pack into so few pages is truly astounding, proving that his ambition and imagination are just out of this world. Whether or not you have read Vevin Song already (which you should), I think Cazorra’s Curse is an unmissable novella for anyone who loves their fantasy to be dark, character-driven, innovative and thought-provoking; this genre-blendy story might not feature any humans, but it truly just speaks to the human soul.
Get Cazorra’s Curse for FREE by signing up to Jonathan Neves Mayers’ newsletter.
