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

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 ...

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...

I see you there.  I think you love Beauty and the Beast tales just as much as I do.  They are fun, challenge the status quo, and scratch that inner call-of-the-wild itch we don't want to admit.   I read an interesting book that well articulated why I appreciate a Beauty and the Beast story over other selections.  Why I gravitate towards a werewolf or shifter romance for an easy weekend read. Hey you!  I'm not the only one!  Beauty and the Beast is a tale as old as time (see what I did there), showing up throughout the ages in various forms and myths.  The oldest version is likely " Cupid and Psyche " from the second century AD.  "The Woman Who Married a Snake" was another early version in Indian culture, shared orally and finally appearing in print in 500 AD (p 15).  Each age and culture has it's version of Beauty and her Beast.  And it turns out we love it just as much in today's culture. In The Meanings of "Beauty & the Bea...