A Curse For True Love Summary, Characters and Themes

A Curse For True Love by Stephanie Garber is the final book in her enchanting Once Upon A Broken Heart trilogy.

It follows Evangeline, who wakes with no memory of the past year, in a kingdom brimming with secrets, curses, and twisted love. At its center is her bond with Jacks, the Prince of Hearts, and Apollo, who claims to be her husband and protector. As Evangeline struggles to reclaim her lost memories, she faces layered betrayals and powerful magic that challenge her desires for true love and freedom. The book explores the cost of love, the weight of choice, and whether love can survive in a world ruled by curses.

Summary

Evangeline wakes up unable to remember the past year of her life.

Apollo, who claims to be her husband, assures her she is safe and tells her that Jacks, the Prince of Hearts, stole her memories and poisoned him.

The kingdom celebrates Apollo’s return, and he has Evangeline’s name tattooed over his heart to prove his devotion.

Evangeline finds herself in Apollo’s grand castle, disturbed by how little she remembers and noticing small warnings that things may not be as perfect as they seem.

A mysterious man visits Evangeline and secretly offers to help her regain her memories, but Apollo insists it is too dangerous.

Unknown to Evangeline, Apollo had never died but spread rumors of his death to strengthen his power while hiding that he was the one who took her memories because she loved Jacks.

The kingdom pressures Apollo to produce an heir, but he only wants Evangeline’s love and obedience, orchestrating events to keep her isolated and dependent.

Evangeline finds a scar on her wrist, linking her to Jacks, which Apollo uses to track him.

She grows increasingly uneasy about her lost memories, especially when she finds a book that briefly shows a story of her with Jacks, stirring something deep within her.

She becomes determined to get her memories back, realizing some things are worth remembering, even if they bring pain.

When she tries to meet the mysterious reporter again, her guards stop her, forcing her to confront Apollo, who manipulates the situation to use her connection with Jacks to hunt him down.

One day, Evangeline is pushed into a wishing well but is saved by a mysterious figure who triggers a memory she cannot fully grasp.

It is Jacks, who returns to teach her how to protect herself, pushing her into danger to force her to fight back, sparking fragmented memories.

Apollo orchestrates attacks on Evangeline to make her believe she is constantly in danger, killing her guards to solidify his power.

At a banquet, she learns of the murders and begins to question her supposed happily ever after with Apollo.

During an assassination attempt, Jacks saves Evangeline, and the encounter awakens more memories.

She feels a deep pull towards him, despite knowing he is dangerous.

Meanwhile, Jacks discovers that a massacre blamed on him was actually committed by Chaos, a vampire connected to the Valor family, who had cast the curse on their land to protect him.

Jacks confronts Chaos, who warns him that Evangeline will never forgive him if he uses her for his goals.

Apollo uses this massacre to paint Jacks as a villain, tightening his control over Evangeline.

Evangeline tries to warn Apollo that Jacks is in the castle, but Apollo leaves for the Hunt, a traditional event held by the Valors.

Evangeline follows him to the hunt, but a noble tries to kill her in the Cursed Forest.

She escapes using Jacks’s dagger, which leads her into the forest’s magical illusions where she meets Chaos.

Jacks arrives and stabs Chaos, taking Evangeline with him.

Jacks binds Evangeline to him with a rope that blooms flowers, taking her to the Hollow while urging her to remember their past.

Despite the closeness and the fragments of memories, Evangeline cannot fully remember, leaving Jacks visibly disappointed.

Meanwhile, Apollo seeks immortality to hunt Jacks by pursuing the Tree of Souls, but he learns the price of immortality is the death of the one he loves most.

Evangeline and Jacks share a moment of intimacy, but Evangeline finds a note in his clothing written by her past self, warning her that Jacks poisoned Apollo to use her as a key to open the Valory Arch.

This revelation returns all of Evangeline’s memories, including the truth that Apollo took them away and that she had once loved Jacks despite his betrayal.

After regaining her memories, Evangeline realizes she still loves Jacks, even though she feels the weight of their complicated past.

She finds herself caught between Apollo’s manipulations and her love for Jacks, determined to save him from himself.

Apollo, realizing she has regained her memories, becomes increasingly possessive and desperate to keep her under his control.

At the Merrywood rebuilding festival, Evangeline connects with Aurora, who reveals herself to be a key player in Apollo’s power and Jacks’s curse.

Evangeline learns from her friend LaLa that Jacks traded his loving heart to Aurora in exchange for the Slaughterwood cuff that protects Evangeline from being harmed.

Without his heart, Jacks becomes dangerous, and Chaos warns Evangeline that Jacks’s kiss will be deadly unless she is immune to his love.

Aurora manipulates Apollo, offering to bring him to the Tree of Souls if he absolves Jacks of his crimes, but Apollo learns that the tree requires a deadly price.

Meanwhile, Evangeline and LaLa raid Aurora’s lair, discovering her diary that reveals Aurora’s involvement in cursing Jacks to kill the girl he loves, hinting that Aurora’s control over Jacks’s curse is deeply personal.

Evangeline refuses to give up on Jacks, even as she learns that he is trying to destroy his own heart using the Phoenix Tree’s fire in Apollo’s court.

Aurora claims that Jacks’s kiss will kill any girl who isn’t immune to his love, but Evangeline is determined to reach him and prove that their love can break the curses surrounding them, no matter how impossible it seems.

Characters

Evangeline

Evangeline emerges as a character caught between her fragmented identity and the crushing expectations of others’ desires for her. She embodies a tragic heroine who is soft yet stubborn, naive yet increasingly perceptive.

She begins with her memories stolen, a blank slate manipulated by Apollo’s claims of love, leaving her clinging to a constructed happiness within the gilded walls of a life she does not fully understand. Yet her instincts, her dreams, and the scars on her body become gentle but relentless reminders that her life is not as it seems, pushing her to seek truth even at the cost of comfort.

Throughout her interactions with Apollo and Jacks, Evangeline is torn between the safety of a love offered and the raw, dangerous magnetism of a love that feels real. Her bravery blossoms when she chooses pain over ignorance, insisting on recovering her memories even if they reveal betrayal, death, and her own sins, demonstrating her belief that love worth having must be grounded in truth, not illusions.

As the memories return, she does not reject the parts of herself that loved Jacks despite his flaws, nor does she shy away from acknowledging Apollo’s manipulations. This highlights her growth into a woman willing to face the messiness of love and power to claim agency over her destiny.

Apollo

Apollo is a deeply layered antagonist whose villainy is rooted not in overt cruelty but in obsessive, controlling love masquerading as protection. He is presented initially as a devoted husband who has resurrected himself for Evangeline, yet beneath this devotion lies a manipulator who has stolen Evangeline’s memories to shape her into the ideal wife who will choose him over Jacks.

Apollo’s power and authority in the Magnificent North allow him to hide his crimes under the guise of duty, orchestrating murders, spreading propaganda, and employing dark magic to maintain his claim on Evangeline. His fear of losing her fuels his increasingly brutal choices, such as murdering guards and orchestrating attacks to convince Evangeline of the world’s dangers so she will stay close to him.

Despite these atrocities, Apollo’s character is not without complexity. His fear and guilt flicker through his facade, revealing a man who knows he has become monstrous in the name of love but feels unable to stop.

His desperation to secure immortality from the Tree of Souls and his willingness to bargain with forces like Aurora demonstrate a man haunted by the fear of loss. Paradoxically, he ends up destroying the love he claims to protect.

Jacks

Jacks, the Prince of Hearts, embodies the tragic, dangerous allure of forbidden love, a figure whose cruelty and tenderness coexist in a balance that confuses and entices Evangeline. At first, Jacks appears as a dangerous rogue blamed for crimes he did not commit, a shadow in the night who challenges Evangeline’s false peace with whispers of truth.

His actions—saving Evangeline, teaching her to defend herself, risking himself to trigger her memories—are driven by a complex mix of love and fatalism. He knows that his presence in her life may doom her but is unable to stay away.

Jacks’s curse, which makes his kiss deadly to all but his true love, is symbolic of his belief that love and destruction are entwined. His choice to trade his loving heart for a protective cuff reveals his willingness to sacrifice himself to keep Evangeline alive, even if she hates him for it.

His moments of vulnerability, such as his whispered plea for her to remember and his near-shy demeanor in fleeting moments, peel back the layers of his hardened exterior. Ultimately, Jacks represents a love that is imperfect and painful yet undeniably real, contrasting sharply with Apollo’s suffocating, sanitized love.

Aurora

Aurora is a cunning and quietly terrifying force whose angelic appearance masks her devilish ambitions and manipulations within the kingdom. She is central to the story’s curse-laden landscape, having orchestrated the curse on Jacks so that he would kill the girl he loves, ensuring he could never belong to another.

Aurora’s motivations are rooted in power and desire, as she weaves herself into the political and magical structures of the Magnificent North to exert control over Apollo and, indirectly, over Evangeline and Jacks. Her manipulation of Apollo, using his guilt and fear to secure the Valors’ position and to advance her own mysterious goals, reveals her as a master strategist who understands the weakness of men who desire love and power.

Aurora’s involvement in the curses that govern Jacks’s tragic condition demonstrates her willingness to tamper with the fabric of fate. She is a character who embodies the corruption of love through control, illustrating how obsession can warp even the purest desires into something monstrous.

Chaos

Chaos, or Castor Valor, is introduced as a figure straddling the line between friend and predator, an ancient vampire whose existence is tied to the curses of the Magnificent North. His interactions with Evangeline in the Cursed Forest reveal a character who is willing to exploit others’ vulnerabilities for his purposes, yet he also possesses a detached, eerie wisdom about the nature of desire and loss.

Chaos’s connection to Jacks and his past as Castor Valor adds layers of tragedy to his character, as he is a living artifact of past mistakes and dark bargains made by the Valor family to preserve him. His nonchalance about violence, coupled with his cryptic warnings to Jacks and Evangeline, positions him as a character who understands the cost of immortality and the inevitability of suffering in a world bound by curses.

He becomes a mirror to the dangers of unending life and the hunger for control. This positions Chaos as a quietly powerful presence in A Curse For True Love.

Themes

Memory, Identity, and Control

In A Curse For True Love, memory loss is not merely a plot device but a mechanism for controlling identity and agency. Evangeline’s amnesia isolates her from her true self, severing her connection to her past choices, relationships, and pain, effectively reducing her to a version that Apollo can mold to fit his vision of love and security.

This theme interrogates how memory is foundational to one’s sense of self; without it, Evangeline becomes pliable, reliant on others to define reality. Apollo’s deliberate theft of her memories represents the ultimate form of control masked under the guise of protection and affection, exposing the sinister side of possessive love.

As Evangeline’s fragments of memory return through moments with Jacks and symbols like the broken heart scar, the story portrays how memory is a reclaiming of power, enabling her to question the narrative Apollo has constructed. The tension between her desire for safety and the discomfort of truths buried in her memories propels her character toward agency, emphasizing that true identity cannot flourish under a controlled, curated existence.

Memory’s restoration, while painful, becomes an act of rebellion against manipulation and an embrace of wholeness. It reinforces that even the most traumatic truths are preferable to the comfort of ignorance when identity and autonomy are at stake.

Power, Manipulation, and Choice

Power dynamics between Evangeline, Apollo, Jacks, and Aurora drive the narrative’s conflict, illustrating how manipulation shapes personal relationships and broader political landscapes in A Curse For True Love. Apollo’s calculated removal of Evangeline’s memories, his orchestration of events like the fall into the well, and his strategic misinformation campaigns are attempts to secure his throne and emotional control over Evangeline, underlining his willingness to prioritize power over genuine connection.

Jacks, while seemingly protective, also manipulates Evangeline for his goals, tethering her to him with enchanted bindings and emotional pushes that blur the lines between protection and coercion. Aurora’s role further complicates this theme as she manipulates circumstances to keep Jacks for herself, using ancient curses and deals to maintain power over the Fates and humans alike.

Within these machinations, Evangeline’s choices become small acts of defiance that assert her will against forces seeking to dictate her life. Her decisions to seek out her memories, confront Apollo, and refuse to abandon Jacks despite the danger represent the struggle for authentic choice in a world designed to strip it away.

This theme showcases the tension between love and control, exploring how individuals attempt to secure power over others under the guise of protection. It also shows how reclaiming choice is a reclamation of freedom in oppressive dynamics.

The Nature of Love and Sacrifice

In A Curse For True Love, love is explored as a force capable of healing and destruction, depending on whether it respects or consumes the beloved’s autonomy. Apollo’s obsession is framed as love but is rooted in possessiveness, leading him to steal Evangeline’s memories to keep her with him, illustrating how love devoid of respect transforms into domination.

Jacks’s feelings for Evangeline, while genuine, are intertwined with curses and prophecies that demand sacrifice, placing Evangeline in a position where love requires her to endure danger and emotional pain. Their dynamic raises questions about whether true love can exist within conditions that demand sacrifice and suffering, or if such circumstances corrupt love’s purity.

Evangeline’s realization that some memories are worth the pain they bring because they represent authentic love, rather than a curated illusion, underscores her evolving understanding that love cannot exist without truth and choice. This theme also examines the sacrifices characters make in the name of love, including Jacks trading his heart, Evangeline risking safety for truth, and Apollo risking his humanity for immortality to keep his claim on Evangeline.

These sacrifices demonstrate love’s complexity, revealing that it is not simply about devotion but also about respecting another’s freedom, acknowledging pain, and accepting loss when necessary. The theme underscores that love without autonomy is a curse, and true love involves choosing to stand beside someone, even in brokenness, rather than possessing them at the cost of their will.

Fate, Prophecy, and Free Will

Throughout A Curse For True Love, the interplay of fate and prophecy clashes with characters’ desires for free will, shaping the conflicts they face. The presence of curses, prophecies, and magical bindings reflects a world where characters are often forced into roles they may not wish to play, questioning whether free will can exist under the heavy hand of destiny.

Jacks, bound by curses that make his kiss deadly and his love dangerous, becomes a tragic figure whose actions are driven by both his feelings and the inevitabilities tied to his existence as a Fate. Evangeline, too, is entangled in prophecies that make her the “key” for the Valory Arch, reducing her humanity to a function within a larger magical agenda.

Despite these external constraints, Evangeline’s determination to reclaim her memories, pursue the truth, and love Jacks despite the fatal consequences of curses becomes a rebellion against the inevitability of prophecy. The narrative explores whether fate is an unyielding force or if love and choice can alter what is foretold, emphasizing that characters are not merely victims of prophecy but can exercise agency, even in defiance of curses and cosmic plans.

This tension enriches the story’s stakes, making each decision a battle against the weight of destiny, and illustrating that free will, even in small actions, is a profound act of courage in a world ruled by fate. Through Evangeline’s choices, the narrative argues that destiny may set the stage, but individuals determine how to play their roles, seeking freedom within constraints imposed by magic and prophecy.