Beastly Beauty
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
*"A dreamy, sublimely written tale." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review
From New York Times bestselling, award-winning author Jennifer Donnelly comes a revolutionary, gender-swapped retelling of Beauty and the Beast that will forever change how you think about beauty, power, and what it really means to follow your heart.
What makes a girl "beastly?" Is it having too much ambition? Being too proud? Taking up too much space? Or is it just wanting something, anything, too badly?
That's the problem Arabella faces when she makes her debut in society. Her parents want her to be sweet and compliant so she can marry well, but try as she might, Arabella can't extinguish the fire burning inside her -- the source of her deepest wishes, her wildest dreams.
When an attempt to suppress her emotions tragically backfires, a mysterious figure punishes Arabella with a curse, dooming her and everyone she cares about, trapping them in the castle. As the years pass, Arabella abandons hope. The curse is her fault -- after all, there's nothing more "beastly" than a girl who expresses her anger -- and the only way to break it is to find a boy who loves her for her true self: a cruel task for a girl who's been told she's impossible to love.
When a handsome thief named Beau makes his way into the castle, the captive servants are thrilled, convinced he is the one to break the curse. But Beau -- spooked by the castle's strange and forbidding ladies-in-waiting, and by the malevolent presence that stalks its corridors at night -- only wants to escape. He learned long ago that love is only an illusion. If Beau and Arabella have any hope of breaking the curse, they must learn to trust their wounded hearts, and realize that the cruelest prisons of all are the ones we build for ourselves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Donnelly (Molly's Letter) submerses readers in a historical romance rich with emotional turbulence in this lushly rendered "Beauty and the Beast" reimagining. Beau is, as his name implies, beautiful. In the band of thieves with which he rides, he's the seducer, making off with targets' hearts alongside their jewelry and silver. As Beau and company careen through the woods of France post-heist, they come upon a castle whose banquet tables are lain with a feast. Confronted by a beast as they contemplate looting the residence, the rest flee, sacrificing Beau. As he plots his escape, he meets the household's warm and strangely caring servants, as well as a vicious group of ladies-in-waiting who attend to the castle's proprietor, the lovely yet cold Lady Arabella. The more Beau sees of his new home, the more he questions his primal need to flee—even in the face of the beast that roams the castle at night. Delicately limned characters brimming with tenable desires and fears provide the foundation upon which Donnelly presents life lessons about chosen family, self-empowerment, and personal truth, and levying moments balance this dreamy, sublimely written tale. Ages 12–up.
