A fun but fairly simplistic fantasy romance.
An intriguing retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story.
Seventeen-year-old Ravenna is the Queen of Lyra, the largest kingdom in the known world. After her parents were killed by raiders, she took the throne. However, ruling a kingdom is easier when it’s done by two people in an equal partnership, and even with her uncle serving as a regent, she finds the weight of leadership to be immense. Marrying someone else is particularly difficult for her, though, because she’s been cursed—by choice. After a suitor broke her heart, she went to Tatiana, her fairy godmother, for help. Tatiana couldn’t fix her broken heart or ease the pain, but she did make a different promise to her charge: “I can protect you from wasting your time on someone who won’t love you.” As a result, anyone courting Ravenna is transformed into a dog and can only regain human form while having dinner with the queen at night. The only way that the suitor will permanently regain human form is if he gives up on pursuing her—or if they fall in love with each other. When Ravenna hosts a ball to herald an alliance between the kingdoms of the known world, Liam, the second prince of Wilderose, arrives. He has no intention of courting Ravenna until Tatiana asks him to break the queen’s curse as a favor to her. As a Beauty and the Beast retelling, this is an innovative take that remixes some elements of the original, familiar fairy tale. Forbes makes some smart decisions in this version—most significantly, by having Ravenna choose to curse herself. However, the story’s interrogation of what it means to do harm to oneself in the name of love is fairly superficial. Indeed, the novel doesn’t seem particularly interested in going any deeper, even when it acknowledges that the path to true love has emotional obstacles: “How was he supposed to learn to love this woman without ending up resenting her first?” This is the first novel of a planned series, though, so Forbes will likely have more room to develop her themes in future installments.
A fun but fairly simplistic fantasy romance.Pub Date: Dec. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-953568-00-7
Page Count: 324
Publisher: C. Forbes Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.
A vampire and an Alpha werewolf enter into a marriage of convenience in order to ease tensions between their species.
As the only daughter of a prominent Vampyre councilman, Misery Lark has grown accustomed to playing the role that’s demanded of her—and now, her father is ordering her to be part of yet another truce agreement. In an effort to maintain goodwill between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses the Weres, Misery must wed their Alpha, Lowe Moreland. But it turns out that Misery has her own motivations for agreeing to this political marriage, including finding answers about what happened to her best friend, who went missing after setting up a meeting in Were territory. Isolated from her kind and surrounded on all sides by the enemy after the wedding, Misery refuses to let herself forget about her real mission. It doesn’t matter that Lowe is one of the most confounding and intense people she’s ever met, or that the connection building between them doesn’t feel like one born entirely of convenience. There’s also the possibility that Lowe may already have a Were mate of his own, but in spite of their biological differences, they may turn out to be the missing piece in each other’s lives. While this is Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, and the book does lean on some hallmark tropes of the genre, the contemporary setting lends itself to the author’s trademark humor and makes the political plot more easily digestible. Misery and Lowe’s slow-burn romance is appealing enough that readers will readily devour every moment between them and hunger to return to them whenever the story diverts from their scenes together.
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593550403
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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