The Curse by LaToya Lawrence Book Review
There’s nothing quite like a fresh start gone horribly wrong, and LaToya Lawrence serves up this cautionary tale with all the atmospheric dread of a humid Southern evening.
“The Curse” follows Cyrilla Tove and her daughter Bexley as they flee Louisiana’s shadows for what they hope will be a peaceful new beginning in South Carolina—only to discover that sometimes the past isn’t what you’re running from, it’s what you need to embrace.
What immediately grabbed me about this premise is how Lawrence flips the typical “new town, fresh start” narrative on its head.
Instead of the newcomers being the mysterious threat, they become the targets of small-town nastiness embodied by Ambrosia, a teenage troublemaker who seems determined to make Bexley’s life miserable.
The author cleverly uses the contrast between Louisiana’s mystical reputation and South Carolina’s genteel facade to create tension that practically crackles off the page.
The mother-daughter dynamic between Cyrilla and Bexley feels authentic and compelling. Cyrilla isn’t just a protective parent—she’s a woman with “dark New Orleans roots” who knows exactly how to handle bullies in her own “sinister Louisiana fashion.”
This suggests a protagonist who’s been hiding her true nature, perhaps trying to shield her daughter from a darker heritage until circumstances force her hand.
Lawrence taps into something universal here: that moment when trying to take the high road becomes impossible, when someone pushes too far and awakens something they shouldn’t have messed with.
The Louisiana-to-South Carolina setting shift is genius—it’s like watching someone mistake a sleeping alligator for a log.
For readers who love atmospheric Southern Gothic with supernatural undertones, this promises to deliver both the slow-burn tension of small-town politics and the satisfying payoff of mystical retribution.
Book Description
It is summer and Cyrilla Tove and her daughter Bexley pick up and leave their native state of Louisiana to make a fresh clean start in the lovely southern state of South Carolina. A nosey young neighbor has eyes on them as soon as they arrive to the neighborhood of Halverson.
Ambrosia—a pushy, troublesome young teenager—quickly starts up a friendship with Bexley. Bexley soon learns that she is unable to trust Ambrosia inciting hard feelings and gossip against the unsuspecting newcomer.
Settling down in a new area for an easygoing life of peace and tranquility expeditiously gyrates into a move of upheaval. Before Cyrilla and her daughter know it, they have become targets around town.
To right the wrong done unto Bexley, Cyrilla returns to her dark New Orleans roots—in her sinister Louisiana fashion of knowing how to properly do things.