Wonderful! I heard about this story from a friend. Beauty and the Beast is my favorite fairy tale, and this book is my favorite book of all time. Like all stories it starts out slow, but it get much better towards the end. I think it is well written and has just enough suspense to satisfy any reader.
Another Beauty&Beast tale? Before you cry "NO"!....... OK...another B&B story...what can one expect? At first I wanted to scream "NO...not another one" but I quickly changed my tune..... This book is more than I expected. A well developed, and well written story with remarkable characters&a different twist to the original form of the B&B tale...This book gives us an unexpected Beauty&the Beast story that will remain well with you....even after the last page is read and the book put away. I actually have this book in my Phantom of the Opera library collection...it sorta reminded me of Erik.....and this book has actually found its way into my "Phantom library" under the genre of "other" books that remind me of Erik.
If you enjoyed this book, you may want to try these books:
Phantom by Susan Kay Beauty by Robin McKinley Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley Beast by Donna Jo Napoli East by Edith Pattou Through the Tempests Dark and Wild by Sharon Darrow The Heavenly Horse from the Outermost West by Mary Stanton
Great for a long afternoon... Like many of the reviewers, I'm a big Beauty and the Beast fan (haven't read much of Lackey's other books, though). After reading several other versions of B&B, I was ready to allow for almost any twists a *retelling* could have. Like Rose, if you can accept aspects of the situation and go with the flow (whether it be whims of the author or convenient plot device), it can be a fun ride :)
I liked the Elementals and might check out if the personalities of the water, air, and earth beings are sketched out in other books in this series. Cuz I'm a goober, the dialogue between Jason and Rose actually made me giddy at times :) ***spoiler: I didn't mind the ending - how many people would want their love to suddenly switch bodies overnight?***
***Mini rant with mini spoilers: I just barely forgave the drawn out tea packet thing and agree with another reviewer - what happened to the dreams?? "Beauty's" dreams are usually a huge component of B&B, so thought this version would fit it in more prominently than it did. And I think Rose gave Jason the wrong color packet in my edition... One thing that really bothered me was that Rose made her trip to the redwood bookshop with novel ideas on how to reverse the spell, but by the end, despite a minor note of her translating somthing, it's as if she's and Jason have completely dropped their research. It greatly diminishes all the prior emphasis on her scholarship and ability. Afterall, a solution exists - couldn't they eventually find it again on their own?***
