The Beast's Heart
A Novel of Beauty and the Beast
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- ¥710
発行者による作品情報
A luxuriously magical retelling of Beauty and the Beast set in seventeenth-century France—and told from the point of view of the Beast himself.
I am neither monster nor man—yet I am both. I am the Beast.
He is a broken, wild thing, his heart’s nature exposed by his beastly form. Long ago cursed with a wretched existence, the Beast prowls the dusty hallways of his ruined château with only magical, unseen servants to keep him company—until a weary traveler disturbs his isolation.
Bewitched by the man’s dreams of his beautiful daughter, the Beast devises a plan to lure her to the château. There, Isabeau courageously exchanges her father’s life for her own and agrees to remain with the Beast for a year. But even as their time together weaves its own spell, the Beast finds winning Isabeau’s love is only the first impossible step in breaking free from the curse....
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Shallcross's dense and discomfiting fantasy debut retells "Beauty and the Beast" from the perspective of the Beast: brooding 17th-century French nobleman Julien Courseilles, desperately lonely after centuries under a green-eyed fairy's curse. Julien's efforts to regain his humanity intensify after he spies honey-haired Isabeau de la Noue in her father's dreams. Julien coerces her to his ensorcelled woodland chateau, and compassionate Isabeau agrees to stay one year. When Julien realizes marrying her could break the curse, he bombards her with proposals while secretly spying on her family to find the key to her heart before time is up. The original tale's abusive subtext becomes unpleasant text in this version: men habitually call stalking "courtship," women romanticize Isabeau's abduction, and Isabeau never developed past blond hair and compulsive caretaking is desperately depressed. Julien's occasional moments of self-awareness swiftly yield to selfishness and violence. What results is a skin-crawling, obsessive quest to manipulate love from a kidnapped woman. Shallcross's lush imagery cannot redeem a plot mired in self-pitying, romanticized abuse.
