Curse Workers series

The Curse Workers series by Holly Black.

Brief Series Description or Overview[]

Cassel comes from a family of Curse Workers - people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all criminals. Many become mobsters and con artists. But not Cassel. He hasn't got magic, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail - he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago. Cassel has carefully built up a facade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his facade starts to crumble when he finds himself sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he must unravel his past and his memories. To find out the truth, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen. ~ Goodreads | White Cat

Books in Series[]

Curse Workers series:

White Cat (2010)
Red Glove (2011)
Black Heart (2012)

Other Series by Author[]

Modern Tale of Faerie
The Folk of the Air series

World Building[]

Setting[]

New Jersey

Places:

Wallingford: The boarding school Cassel attends
Princeton

New York Atlantic City

Supernatural Elements[]

✥ Curse workers, witches, faeries, magic users,

Glossary:[]

(Curse) Worker: A person with the ability to effect others' luck, life, memory, etc. with just the touch of a hand. Contact must be between bare skin, which is why the citizens within these stories wear gloves everywhere. Anyone who can do curse work. There are seven types:
- luck, dreams, physical, emotion, memory, death, and transformation
a mark: The target of a con, the person you are trying to scam.
HBG: abbreviation of Hyperbathygammic (or Heebeegeebies), the long medical term for worker, to save space.
Blowback: Side effect of curse working. Different types of working results in different reactions, all negative.

Groups & Organizations:[]

HEX: advocacy group that wants to make working legal again—so laws against more serious works can be better enforced.
Licensed Minority Division: A federal agency that recruits workers

World[]

The world of curse workers is fantastically written. it is a perfect example of an alternate world that has revolved around curse workers and their way around in society.

A great example of this is Australia. Australia in our universe was basically made of convicts. All sent from Britain. However in Cassel’s universe, it was founded by curse workers, which in his universe are the equivalent of convicts. The government system is essentially the same, however teenage curse workers if they are found by the government are sent to training camps, where they learn to "control" their work (Cassels grandpa tells him that they just train them to not use it), and look around and act as police.

Curses[]

Hyperbathygammics are born with a singular curse faculty: enacting a curse upon a designated Mark(s), jeopardizing the Mark’s dreams, chances of luck, physical well-being, memory, living status, or potentially altering the reciprocate. The process involves having the Worker touch a specific area of the Mark's skin using their bare hands or even feet within countries with internment camps for Hyperbathygammics. Workers face extreme physical consequential repercussions(blowback) when implementing curses upon the Mark(s).

**The seven types of curse work are as follows:**
	Curse	Blowback
Luck	- Influencing the cursed reciprocate's chance outcomes, either negatively or positively; intensely shifting the balance of fortune within a particular scenario	Inverse luck
Death	- With bare touch, a quiet, instantious sudden death is brought to the Mark without warning - Also allows the Worker to decay specific body parts at will	Necrosis decay
Physical	- Bodily autonomy rehabilitation; negative or positive impact upon the Mark does not redetermine the outcome of the blowback	Deterioration in physical health
Memory	- Creation of memories that can overwrite previous ones; memory development causes intense blowbacks - Memory extraction - Memory blockage; the easiest technique and less harmful for the Worker	Memory loss
Emotional	- Emotional development upon the Mark; “Affectionate” pursuits using this method must be met with coercion with the Mark, as emotional work does not contrast memory proposition - Once worked, the Worker is unable to withdraw emotional impact, wares off overtime(~6 months approximately) - Simplifies psychological emotional response - A previous Mark can be worked to have their emotions overwritten, combining emotional response	Emotional instablity
Dream	- Inhabiting the Mark's dreams; permitting the Worker to wander within the Mark's dreamscape, often used to collect personal information that can be used against the Mark - The ability to exploit the Mark by having them do unconscious tasks, or to sleepwalk. Ex. Lila working her mom to make her make her pancakes - Slumber upon command	Vile Insomnia
Transformation	- Rarest type of curse work--approximately one is born every decade - The ability to repossess any form upon the Mark(s); inanimate or animate - Once an organism is mutated into an object, even if it is worked into back into it's previous state, it will only be able live momentarily	Unstable constant metamorphose(~30 minutes)

Protagonist[]

✥ Cassel Sharpe: Born to a family full of Curse Workers, Cassel doesn't fit in. He has no powers, but a dark secret, a murder in his past, the details of which are fuzzy. Things are about to get flipped when he starts dreaming about a white cat.

Characters Chart[]

Characters	Status	Description
Cassel Sharpe	Transformation Worker	Born to a family full of Curse Workers
Lila Zacharov	best friend Dream Worker	Cassel killed her when he was fourteen. She was his best friend and he loved her. Cassel's brothers found him standing over her body with blood on his hands.
Anton Zacharov		Lila's cousin and Philip's best friend. He is in line to be the Zacharov heir.
Barron Sharpe	memory worker	Cassel's brother; used to date Lila; works with Anton;
Sam Yu	science geek	Cassel's roommate at boarding school. He takes over Cassel's "bookkeeping" for twenty-five percent when he has to leave school. He is a horror film enthusiast and hard-core science geek.
Philip Sharpe	Cassel's brother	Hasn't looked Cassel in the eyes since the night with Lila. He's married to Maura and is Anton's right hand man.
Maura Sharpe	Hears music	Philip's wife. Hears music when there is none.
Daneca Wasserman	Cassel's classmate	her family are the co-founders of HEX, an advocacy group that wants to make working legal again.
Grandad	death worker	Enrolled Cassel into Wallingford; parts of his fingers have shriveled away as blowback from the murders he committed. He lives in Carney where retired workers live.
Mr. Valerio	Hall master	at Walligford
Audrey		Cassel's ex-girlfriend;
Mrs. Wasserman	Co-founder of HEX	Daneca's mother; as a worker activist she has been on TV and has openly admitted to be a worker herself.
Dr. Churchill	sleep specialist
Dean Wharton	Dean of the school
Rahul Pathak	soccer player	Junior-year
Ms. Noyes	Teacher	at Wallingford
Shandra Sharpe	emotion work	In jail, convicted due to her crooked emotion work. She's big on family, always pushing the Sharpe brothers to protect each other, even if it takes a bit of "work" on her part.

To expand the table, in Edit–Visual mode, right-press on a Row of the table or Column (Control-press on a Mac)—choose add Row or Column.

Author[]

Holly Black

Contributors[]

Cover Artists[]

Artist: Michael Frost — source: ISFdb: Cover: White Cat

Other Contributors:[]

Audio Book Narrator: Jesse Eisenberg — Source: Audible

Publishing Information[]

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books; Orion Publishing Group

White Cat: Hardcover, 310 pages, Pub: May 4th 2010 by (first published January 1st 2010)—ISBN 1416963960 — (editions)
Red Glove: Hardcover, 325 pages, Pub: April 5th 2011—ISBN 144240339X — (editions)
Black Heart: Hardcover, 296 pages, Pub: April 3rd 2012—ISBN 1442403462 —(editions)

Book Cover Blurbs[]

✤ BOOK ONE—White Cat (2010): Cassel comes from a family of Curse Workers - people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all criminals. Many become mobsters and con artists. But not Cassel. He hasn't got magic, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail - he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago. Cassel has carefully built up a facade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his facade starts to crumble when he finds himself sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he must unravel his past and his memories. To find out the truth, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen. ~ Goodreads | White Cat

✤ BOOK TWO—Red Glove (2011): The cons get craftier and the stakes rise ever higher in the riveting sequel to White Cat. After rescuing his brothers from Zacharov’s retribution, Cassel is trying to reestablish some kind of normalcy in his life. That was never going to be easy for someone from a worker family that’s tied to one of the big crime families—and whose mother’s cons get more reckless by the day. But Cassel is coming to terms with what it means to be a worker, and he’s figuring out how to have friends. Except normal doesn’t last very long. Soon Cassel is being courted by both sides of the law and is forced to confront his past—a past he remembers only in scattered fragments, and one that could destroy his family and his future. Cassel will have to decide whose side he wants to be on, because neutrality is not an option. And then he will have to pull off his biggest con ever to survive…. ~ Red Glove (Curse Workers, #2) by Holly Black

✤ BOOK THREE—Black Heart (2012): In a world where Magic is illegal. Cassel Sharpe has the most deadly ability of all. With one touch, he can transform any object - including a person - into something else entirely. And that makes him a wanted man. The Feds are willing to forgive all his past crimes if he'll only leave his con artist family behind and go straight. But why does going straight feel so crooked? For one thing, it means being on the opposite side of the law from Lila, the girl he loves. She's the daughter of a mob boss and getting ready to join the family business herself. Though Cassel is pretty sure she can never love him back, he can't stop obsessing over her. Which would be bad enough, even if her father wasn't keeping Cassel's mother prisoner in a posh apartment and threatening not to let her leave until she returns the priceless diamond she scammed off him years ago. Too bad she can't remember where she put it. The Feds say they need Cassel to get rid of a powerful man who is spinning dangerously out of control. But if they want Cassel to use his unique talent to hurt people, what separates the good guys from the bad ones? Or is everyone just out to con him? Time is running out, and all Cassel's magic and cleverness might not be enough to save him. With no easy answers and no one he can trust, love might be the most dangerous gamble of all. ~ Black Heart (Curse Workers, #3) by Holly Black

First Sentences[]

White Cat (2010) — I wake up barefoot, standling on cold slate tiles.
Red Glove (2011) — I don't know whether it's day or night when the girl gets up to leave.
Black Heart (2012) — My brother Barron sits next to me, sucking the last dregs of milk tea slush noisily through a wide yellow straw.

Quotes[]

Holly Black Quotes (Author of Tithe) ~ Goodreads
Curse Workers Series ~ Shelfari

Trivia[]

Awards[]

White Cat (2010) — Nebula (Finalist, 2010: Andre Norton Award); BFYA 2011 list (2011); Andre Norton Award Nominee for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy (2010)
Red Glove (2011) — Cybils Award Nominee for Fantasy & Science Fiction (Young Adult) (2011)
Black Heart (2012) — Nebula (Finalist, 2012: Andre Norton Award), Andre Norton Award Nominee (2012)

Read Alikes (similar elements)[]

External References[]

Books:

Holly Black: Young Adult Novels ~ Author
Curse Workers series by Holly Black ~ Goodreads
Holly Black ~ FF
The Curse Workers - Series Bibliography ~ ISFdb
Curse Workers Series ~ Shelfari
Curse Workers | Series | LibraryThing ~ LibraryThing
FictFact - Curse Workers series by Holly Black ~ FictFact
Holly Black - Summary Bibliography ~ ISFdb (author)

World, Characters, etc:

Curse Workers Series ~ Shelfari

Reviews:

Interviews, Guest Posts, Author Commentary:

Artist:

Michael Frost - Summary Bibliography

Author:

Community and Fan Sites: