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

Fellow princesses, princes and other self-ordained royalty, I'm thrilled for the new year!  It's my favorite time of year - that feeling of new beginnings and new thoughts for the year is exciting! Word of the Year Every year I chose a theme word as an exercise to focus my intention and check-in throughout the year. In 2025 my word was WONDER.  2025 was a heady year of change and blessings.  More than I deserve and more than I expected.  We changed jobs, moved cities, moved homes, lost our fur kid, reconnected with friends, traveled to new destinations and overall, the year was wonderous (with the exception of losing our girl, though we knew it was coming.  Can you ever be ready for that?).  My intention was to appreciate the wonder each day - with new eyes, fresh appreciation to the Creator of the universe, and overall rather, be in awe.  It's been great.  I'm in awe and endeavor to stay in awe. For 2026, I've settled on ENJOY.  I started wi...

So, how was your reading year?  Did you set goals?  Follow your moods? I've shared that I'm a mood reader and that's definitely reflective of what made it to my "read" pile in 2025.  No themes, other than the obvious, Beauty and her Beast. 📌 Quick note:  I participate in affiliate marketing. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thanks for your support!  My goal in 2026 is enough to fund the move to a more user-friendly site. 📖  Kindle Unlimited  (KU) choices won the day this year, and surprisingly many of them were recommendations that also happened to be available on Kindle Unlimited .  That's a win.  I love shopping independent bookshops, I also appreciate the flexibility of Kindle Unlimited and the publishing avenue it allows all authors. 2025 Beauty and the Beast Retelling Round-up I definitely jumped moodily around with these Beauty and the Beast retellings.  I set a goal of at least one retelling per m...

I see you there - You planful readers, you, who make meticulous TBR (to be read) lists, create lovely bullet journals with color-coded pictograms, and actually stick to their reading lists. I really want to be one of you. But… I'm not.  I'm not swayed by bookstagrams and I'm way out of book fashion.  I'm 100% mood reader. I love my organized library wall of books and my toppling stacks of TBRs.  I aspire to be intentional and organized, and then we roll into the weekend and I want a cozy romantasy or spicy shifters.  We're back to the work week and I start two chapters into a non-fiction book that will be transformational, I'm sure, then back to what I was reading before the weekend mood ripped me away. Ok, I'm just gonna own it… and I have a few confessions. I Cheat on My Books Yes, I'm saying it out loud. Normal mode:  I read a fiction book and a non-fiction for development.  I will also likely be reading something for my morning quiet time routine....

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 ...