So, I could swear I read A. Lee Martinez's Gil's All Fright Diner, but I may not have. I did, however, read A. Lee Martinez's Too Many Curses, which wound up being very silly and occasionally poignant.
Our Heroine, Nessy, devotes her life to cleaning and organizing the evil wizard Margle's castle. He pays her in insults and a cot. Until the day he brings home an egg that hatches a One Eyed, one horned purple people eater. Which eats Margle them imprints on Nessy. Nessy, being a kobald, may or may not be the best mommy for a One Eyed, One Horned Purple People Eater, particulalry not in a castle filled with people cursed by her master.
Nessy, thankfully, is a very practical sort, She finds ways to scrape 30 minutes a day out of her busy life of polishing and alphabetizing and reading to the monster under her bed to study magic to reverse the multiple curses laid upon the inhabitants of the castle. (My favorite is the poor owl who was also cursed to speak in alliteration.)
Anyway, most of the plot revolves around The Door That Should Not Be Opened (which tends to wander the castle following Margle's untimely demise), a Demon queen trapped in the form of 10 million fireflies, and an evil wizardess looking to destroy the castle.
What we ultimately find is a message about how what we are cursed with is less important than what we are on the inside. Thus an Excalibur-wielding fruit bat.
It's geared towards a younger audience, but it remains a fun read.
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