Review: The Diablo's Curse

The Diablo's Curse by Gabe Cole Novoa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Though I'll always be a fan of Beyond the Red and sequels first and foremost, I'm very happy to see that Gabe Cole Novoa has been carving himself a nice new niche in the YA publishing world, now with his second book in a loosely connected series of pirate fantasy novels. Trading in the sunny Caribbean for the more forbidding waters off Massachusetts (albeit with a misplaced tropical island or two, because diablo magic) and focusing on the mission-driven demonio Dami as they try to cancel all the deals they've made, Novoa's got the recipe down for some of the finest adventuring in the business. Naturally, our protagonists come from all across the LGBTQ+ spectrum - Dami, of course, being genderfluid and nonbinary; Silas, who irritates the hell out of them for all the right reasons; and Marisol, a trans girl fleeing from the family who never let her be herself. Though some aspects of the prose do read a little distractingly modern for this 19th century setting, it helps establish the characters' witty styles better, so it works better than most other anachronistic examples. I hope to see more seafaring fun from Novoa coming soon, though I can't imagine how he could make a better (anti) hero than Dami, who's one of my favorite characters of his by far now. (Though Eros will still be my best bi boi, of course, for obvious reasons.)

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