The Borrowed Rose: Beauty and the Beast Book Recommendations and Retellings

Jericho Z Barrons. Beast? Definitely. Beauty's Beast? Let's Assess. Here's a question that I'm sure is plaguing us all:  How do we process the beast characters that don't act very Beauty-and-the-Beastly?  Ha! Our fairytales love the Beast who fits the mold - alpha hero, alpha anti-hero, badass beast with an honor code.  But what about beasts that don't have a squishy center? In the Fever   series, author Karen Marie Moning has created one of my favorite supporting alpha male characters - Jericho Z Barrons.  He's enigmatic, powerful, primal, and a rather non-anti-hero.  Barrons is unapologetically Barrons.  It's refreshing - he's not trying to develop - he's static, and the perfect foil for a spazzy, freshly-minted, resourceful southern belle. How would he measure up against the traditional Beast from the original Beauty and the Beast fairytale ? Jericho Z Barrons as the Beast in Beauty and the Beast Let's consider how Barrons would compare ...

Please note:  As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Most Beauty and the Beast retellings are based in fantasy and magical in some way.  That's the nature of most fairytales.  In this update, I have three retellings for you with fun magical twists!  Plus, all three are currently available via Kindle Unlimited , which is an awesome way to access an seemingly endless supply of fairytale retellings. Enjoy! Roses in Amber is one of the first retellings I've read that makes great use of the original, original Beauty and the Beast fairytale , along with fun nods to Disney's version .  Beauty and her family retire to the countryside due to financial turmoil, just as in the original tales. She and her father venture back to the big city when they learn their fortunes may have turned and on the way back... that darned rose. But this time, Beauty picks the rose and the tale unfolds.  Beauty leads the story in this retelling with agency and growi...

I read a lot in 2024 - just five shy of 100 books according to my Goodreads profile .  I've realized I don't love reading goals - they muck with the quality of what I'm reading.  Sometimes a quick and easy book is just the thing; sometimes I'm eager for a 1,000 page tome.  I'm an achiever by nature and if a goal is set, I'll strive towards it.  But reading is a passion and I don't want to muck with that, so I'm skipping a reading goal in 2025. All in all, it was a great reading year with some really excellent books.  I discovered Kate Quinn with  The Rose Code .  I enjoyed Violet and Xaden's dramatic fling in Fourth Wing and Iron Flame , and I re-read the first five of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series .  Gabriel de León in Empire of the Damned is one of my favorite not-so-heroes.  And both the Ilona Andrews Clean Sweep series and Spellslinger series by Sebastien de Castell were super fun.  What about Bride by Ali Hazelwood and ...

Who knew that Beauty and the Beast  would meet smutty mafia romances and become a thing? But of course it is! I picked up a Beauty and the Beast -themed mafia romance the other weekend on a whim.  Mafia romances are not a genre I typically enjoy, especially not the dark variety.  Yet on a lark, I read Beautiful Beast (Perfectly Imperfect: Mafia Legacy #1) by Neva Altaj about a hacker and her scarred, obsessed mobster boss who hides her clothes so she'll wear his.  (Ummhmm... Aren't weekends perfect for a fast, fun read?) It was indeed fun, fast-paced and cute, so I read the second in the series:  Broken Whispers  (Perfectly Imperfect #2)  by the same author about an arranged marriage between a mute ballerina and her scarred husband.  And you can guess what happened next - I read another one. The Mafia Romance Trope So then I got curious as to when mafia romances became a trope.  It's not a theme I remember selling much of working at a bookst...

This is not a fairytale post - at least not yet*…   “A life without books is a life not lived, Dior. There’s a magik like no other to be found in them. To open a book is to open a door—to another place, another time, another mind. And usually, mademoiselle, it’s a mind far sharper than your own.” ― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned I just finished Empire of the Damned , book 2 in the Empire of the Vampire series by Jay Kristoff , and I loved it! Empire of the Vampire series by Jay Kristoff Warning - it's a cliffhanger!  And while I'm not irritated by that, I'm anxious to find out what shenanigans Gabriel de León and his band of misfits will pull off.  I anticipated the ending, but wasn't disappointed in any way.  I loved the dual points-of-view throughout and the dynamic layers within the final scenes. Kristoff's style is grimdark, gothic and edgy; his use of language profuse and lovely.  His writing reminds me of what baroque might look like as a writi...

Beauty and the Beast has been around for a looonng time - evolving from variations of Cupid & Psyche from the 2nd century AD.  What about the werewolf trope?  It was myth and folklore long before it was a paranormal trope today.  Early writings about lycanthropy popped up early in the 1st century AD and then later in the 1100-1200s.  Dealing with werewolves was concern enough in medieval Europe to write about it.   Both mythologies involve the animal nature of man - whether good or evil, whether to embrace or to tame.  The original Beauty and the Beast used a similar animal magnetism to demonstrate how young women can claim their own agency to tame the beast in a coming of age experience. It's not surprising then, to see these two mythologies cross over from time to time.  Jerry Griswold comments in his fun Beauty and the Beast commentary,  The Meanings of "Beauty and the Beast:" A Handbook , that "in a hyper-civilized society like ou...