Author: Elizabeth Helen
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
In this Beauty and the Beast inspired story, our heroine doesn’t just get one beast, she gets four.
Rosalina has lived in Orca Cove her entire life after her mother disappeared when she was only a year old. Her father spent most of those years searching for her mother, who he’s convinced was stolen by fae. Rosalina has resigned her life to staying in Orca Cove, unable to go elsewhere and wanting to be there for her dad when he returns home between his travels.
One evening, another resident of Orca Cover alerts Rosalina that he found her father’s jacket in the woods. She goes to the spot and knows instinctively that her father must have actually found a path into the fae realm, and she follows the path he’s made. In classic Beauty and the Beast fashion, she finds the castle, discovers her father imprisoned, and volunteers to take his place. Keldarion, the High Prince of Winter and her father’s captor, accepts the trade and locks her up.
Eventually, she escapes the cell and learns there are three other high princes of the other seasons residing in the castle, all cursed to turn into wolves at night until they find their true love.
This is advertised as a why-choose Beauty and the Beast retelling, so you can imagine what happens next (or what will be happening over the series; there are four books so far).
This was a Fairyloot Romantasy pick, which I haven’t had a ton of luck with lately. But I was pleased to say that I truly enjoyed this book. I’ll admit when I first read the description, I thought it was likely to read like a hastily-written money-grab capitalising on popular tropes and themes like why-choose and fae.
Our main character, Rosalina, will be an identifiable figure for many of the target audience of this book: women who don’t feel like they fit in and love romance but are often denigrated for it. There’s a heavy amount of escapism in this book, where the authors are clearly tempting the readers to run away with Rosalina to this enchanted castle full of hot guys who, unlike everyone in her human town, adore and respect her, as well as an expanded cast of characters who appreciate her love of literature and desire to help others find stories they like.
This escapism is balanced with a wider story that unfolds over subsequent books, so it feels like there’s enough plot to keep the reader interested and enough escapism to satisfy that desire, if that’s what you’re looking for.
Additionally, I found this book highly reminiscent of A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR). Not just because it’s a Beauty and the Beast retelling, not just because it’s fae, not just because it has the seasonal courts, but because of all of that and we have a fifth prince, the Prince of Thorns, who plays a villain role in this book and future ones, but for whom I suspect we will be getting a Rhysand-like redemption arc.
To be clear, this is a different book than ACOTAR, but if you really love romance-heavy romantasy, why choose and ACOTAR, you’ll probably get on with this series.
The Kat Bite 
Leave a comment