Those readers who are active on Twitter may have seen Nicki Salcedo’s response to Suzanne Brockmann’s speech at RWA. If you haven’t, it’s worth a read. I found it infuriating and eye-opening all at once. But then, as I read through Salcedo’s description of her debut novel, All Beautiful Things, I knew I had to…
The Highlander’s Promise is a Beauty and the Beast story between a laird and a gently-born lady. While the premise is not uncommon – an amnesiac heroine discovers love and passion with a strong alpha hero – the execution is poor. The characters are uninspiring and unimaginative and the interesting actions of the story are…
In Bed of Flowers, author Erin Satie has produced an interesting, and magic-free, fairy tale retelling. Young and beautiful Bonny Reed is the prettiest girl in town, and possibly the sweetest as well. Unfortunately, after a terrible fire some years before, her family has been through hard times. Now engaged to the wealthy Mr. Gavin,…
An AAR Top 100 Romance originally published on April 15, 1998 Beauty and the Beast stories are favorites with many readers of romance novels. There is just something about the whole premise that lends itself to romance and resonates with readers in a way that other fairy tale archetypes do not. Ravished is a touching…
An AAR Top 100 Romance review originally published on August 16, 2006 It’s been some time now since I had a good cry over a book, but toward the end of Simply Love I had to get out several handkerchiefs. When Mary Balogh is on top of her game, she is hard to beat and…
A marvelous stand-alone Beauty-and-the-Beast fantasy (or maybe Beast-and-the-Beauty, or perhaps just Beast-and-Beast?) by an author who really knows her way around the supernatural? Yes, yes, yes! Twenty years ago, the kingdom of Elden fell to the vile Blood Sorcerer. Before dying, the queen cast a spell to transport her four children out the palace in…
In Hunted, Megan Spooner, author of the Skylark and Starbound trilogies of books, attempts to restyle the popular tale of Beauty and the Beast as an action romp, with, unfortunately, little success. Set in ancient Russia, our heroine is Yeva, daughter of a rich merchant, who is at court as a lady in waiting to…
I recently read this, and as usual, Draven does not disappoint. The tale is a twist on the Beauty and the Beast trope, except in this case, both characters carry their own curses. The maiden Imogen has been cursed with the touch of death, and wants to be rid of it; the King Cededa’s enchanted…
Liam MacKenzie, Lord Ravencroft, is a man of action. When we first meet him, he’s pulling the rotting skeleton of a bawdy woman he once knew out of a bog, a woman the local gossip accuses him of murdering. He has, in response to his father’s cruel teachings, become a soldier for the crown and…
I’m always up for a good fairy-story retelling, and having heard good things about this author, I picked up Beauty and the Highland Beast with reasonably high expectations. I can’t, however, say that they were met, because while the writing is very good and the tension that leads to the dramatic finale is skilfully built,…