View source for LoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse by Pekka Harju-Autti

{{infobox1
|title=LoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|author=Pekka Harju-Autti
|reviewer=Jill Murphy
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=In the mid-eighteenth century, Captain Julius and his son sail to remote islands and find a people and a way of life that leads them into questioning everything. A fascinating fantasy with deep meaning that will leave you with as many questions as answers.
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=259
|publisher=Amazon
|date=March 2025
|isbn=978-9528800255
|website=https://www.lovevortexbooks.net/
|cover=B0DS1VGHH3
|aznuk=B0DS1VGHH3
|aznus=B0DS1VGHH3
}}

It's the eighteenth century, a time of discovery and Britain is expanding its foreign trade. Captain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, is sent to the Andaman Islands in his endeavour. Along with his son, Peter, and their cat, Michi, they set off on a perilous voyage to these faraway lands. The islands are beautiful and stunning in their scenery and the islanders' leader, Aarav, is keen to establish good relations.

But the islands harbour a secret: because of a curse issued by the dragon, Drakor, the Andaman Islanders are all born with their death date tattooed on their foreheads. This has affected the island society in many different ways and its people long to escape it. Julius resolves to find Drakor and break the curse - along the way, he and Peter will have to navigate not only a perilous path with a fearsome dragon at the end of it, but also existential questions about their own lives and the differences in two very different cultures.

Oh, I enjoyed reading ''Love Vortex and the Drakor's Curse''. How would you feel if you had always known the date of your death? Would it have changed your life choices, important decisions you made about your career and your relationships? Would you have thought about death more, or less? And how do you think society would be different if everyone knew when they would die? Harju-Autti offers some suggestions on how societies might organise themselves: in the Andaman Islands, people with long and short lifetimes are treated quite differently. Would the longer-lived people, expected to fulfil responsible and difficult roles resent the shorter-lived, who are more indulged? Or would everyone accept both their fates and the roles those fates assigned to them as the natural order of things? 

There's so much to like in this story. The premise, when you think about it, is quite chilling: nobody much likes to dwell on their death. But Harju-Autti's treatment of it is rather kind and gentle, even as it goes through the negatives as well as the positives in a society where everyone knows the date of their own death. It's an inquiring story in which readers are invited to think for themselves rather than one in which the author has already decided how things will or should be. 

The narrative is clean and straightforward, without subplots and digressions to divert from the main premise, and the prose has a light touch, giving us a book that could appeal to teenagers as well as adults, especially teenagers interested in life's big questions. And it's a properly swashbuckling fantasy too, with plenty of action, hardships to be overcome, and a well-thought out world you can believe in.

I thoroughly enjoyed ''LoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse'' and I think you will, too.

Recommended.

You can find a different, but equally absorbing, historical fantasy with dragons at its core in [[A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent by Marie Brennan]].

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