Rating: ★★★★
I’ll be honest in saying that I did not expect much from this book. I thought, “It’s a Beauty and the Beast retelling, it can’t be anything new.” Well, I was wrong about that. This is a Beauty and the Beast retelling with some grit.
Our protagonist, Harper, isn’t having a great time of it when we meet her at the beginning of the book. Her father has left, her mother is dying, and her brother has gotten caught in some trouble. All this means that she has learned to fight, and fight is exactly what she does when she finds herself whisked away to a magical world and imprisoned. Rhyn, the “beast” of this story, was hoping for a woman to easily fall in love with him in order to break the curse on him, but finds a bigger challenge in Harper than he was expecting.
I really enjoyed the characters in the book. Harper is our Belle, but she is not a cookie cutter princess character. I loved that there was disability representation in Harper, but that this was never presented in a way to make us pity Harper. I liked how Rhyn’s character really developed throughout the book, and I loved that they both had their own relationships and bonds outside of the romance – such as their respective friendships with Grey and Harper’s with her brother. Personally, I have thing for sibling relationships in books, and Harper’s relationship with her brother really pulled on my heartstrings.
Kemmerer also did a great job at developing a really exciting and fast-paced book where I couldn’t wait to see what happened next. Lilith, our villain, is a brilliant antagonist and the action of the book was definitely exciting enough to bring me back for more in book 2.
Have you read A Curse So Dark and Lonely? What did you think?
Ink Drops Books 