REVIEW: Beyond the Curtain

By Denise @ Life With No Plot on February 19, 2026 • ( 0 )

About the Book

Title: Beyond the Curtain

Author: Marie Lunga

Series: Beyond the Curtain #1

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 560

Edition Read: NetGalley ARC

Dates Read: February 7 – 16, 2026

Blurb: Europe is a land of magic now. In an allegory to European history and the Iron Curtain, Marie Lunga cloaks the continent behind an impenetrable, magical barrier. She takes you inside a changed world where magic stretches the limits of what you can do, making it all the more important to remember what you should do.

But humans remain human – and we are flawed.

Europe is a land of magic now.

“We exist,” wizards announced to the world, intending to rule it. They succeeded.

Ølsa’s family didn’t share that ambition. They fought a war against it. Now Ølsa is held hostage to her parents’ good behaviour and fights only for a scrap of normalcy and the privilege of being left alone. Until an ambitious coach picks her for the wild card into her team. Safety in obscurity is gone. Everyone’s watching now. In the outskirts of the Realm, the dissent watches too. And they make plans.

For fans of Hunger Games or The Name of the Wind comes a high-stakes debut from a Czech author.

Review

This was a very interesting read. Thank you to NetGalley for letting me get the ARC.

I really liked the concept of Europe being a land of wizards now. Anytime you place fantastical events in the real world is fascinating. How does that change relationships between families or friends. How does it change the politics of that region. Is it a peaceful revelation or does it cause conflict? In this case, it’s interesting because there was a war, which led to the Curtain coming down, cutting off Europe from the rest of the world. Except that there are wizards who are outside the Curtain and there are non-magical people, which they call the Hapless, who are stuck on the inside. The Hapless and the wizards don’t really get along, to put it mildly, but there are also factions among the wizards who don’t get along either, who don’t agree with the leaders who put them in this situation in the first place. It’s definitely a good set up for a lot of conflict within a magical yet familiar story world.

The blurb is misleading, as it makes it sound like there’s only one main character. Orla is probably the “main” main character, but there are two other POV characters that we spend a fair amount of time with: Liam, a wizard who lives outside the curtain, working with a government agency helping refugees, and Halina, a wizard(?) who lives in and around the Hapless slums inside the Curtain. They all have their own issues that they are trying to resolve. Orla is trying to learn more about her magic, after having her education stunted due to her parents being rebels. Liam is trying to find answers about the Curtain, working for the wizarding government while having friends among the rebels who died in the war (who may not be completely dead). Halina is the most ambiguous. She has magic, but it’s hard to tell whether she actually can cast magic, or if she is relying on trinkets and trickery. Mostly, she seems only set on survival, but there is always something more bubbling under the surface.

I will say that the ending threw me for a bit. There is a big plot twist (which I obviously won’t reveal, but has to do with the identity of certain characters not being who you thought they were) that I honestly found to be a bit confusing, to the point where I’m still not sure who was who. I admit that this might just be my brain not wanting to put the pieces together, but it made the ending a bit weird for me.

That was really my only complaint. I enjoyed the world building and the characters a lot. This is set up to be the first book in a series, although I don’t know how many books are coming after. I’m definitely interested to see where it goes next.

GoodReads rating: 4 stars