The Beauty of The Wolf
Author: Wren Delaney
Published by:HQ Stories
Pages: 385
Format:Hardback
My Rating ★★★
For he is the beauty & I be the beast…
In the age of the Faerie Queene, Elizabeth 1, Lord Francis Rodermere starts to lay waste to a forest. Furious, the sorceress who dwells there scrawls a curse into the bark of the first oak he fells:
A faerie boy will be born to you whose beauty will be your death.
Ten years later, Lord Rodermere’s son, Beau, is born – and all who encounter him are struck by his great beauty.
Meanwhile, many miles away in a London alchemist’s cellar, lives Randa – a beast deemed too monstrous to see the light of day.
And so begins a timeless tale of love, tragedy and revenge…
My thoughts
The Beauty of the Wolf, written by award-winning author Sally Gardner under a pseudonym, was a book that caught my interest as soon as I came across it. I really do love a fun fantasy read, not to mention a fairytale retelling, but all in all, I struggled with this one initially. For probably the entire first half of the book, the slow pacing felt as though the plot was just not moving forward at all. Despite the excellent world-building, I felt like I was waiting and waiting to get to the heart of this story, and it wasn’t until about 200 pages or so in that I finally felt some magic in the atmosphere and began to genuinely enjoy the book.
The story is told from three viewpoints: the beauty, the beast, and the sorceress. This actually became really quite confusing at certain points, as it was not always clear who was being referred to as the beauty and who as the beast – this switches around quite a bit between Beau and Randa as the story progresses. The constant changing of the point of view left me unclear about which character was talking.
I (mostly) enjoyed the writing, which felt very poetic and descriptive, but there were definitely moments where it did get a little too over-descriptive. I found the book to be very wordy, with tons of descriptive writing, and this made for a pretty sluggish reading experience.
There were so many interesting characters in The Beauty of The Wolf, with of course Randa and Beau at the heart of the story. Beau is beautiful inside and out but to him his beauty is a curse, not a blessing along with his desire to murder his repulsive father. Beau has a gift bestowed on him by his faerie mother, he can hear the thoughts of certain magical beings and he quickly becomes devoted to a particular voice, which keeps him company in even his loneliest moments. The voice belongs to Randa. Fate brings Beau and Randa together again and eventually Beau sees her in her true form. Despite the love they feel for one another, and the sorceress will stop at nothing to keep them apart.
If only the other characters had been given a little more depth and backstory also, and perhaps fleshed out a tad more, I feel the book would have been more appealing to read, particularly in those first hundred or two pages.
The story was about looking past outward beauty and looking at the beauty inside of someone. The start was slow, but I’m glad I didn’t give up on this one as things actually got a lot better about halfway through, when finally Beau and Randa were able to interact.
The sex scenes were kind of awkward and uncomfortable to read, with the use of slang profanities and language feeling very out of place in a world of magic and fairies. Several of the sex scenes early on in the book felt unnecessary to the plot and I’m still not really sure why they were included.
The Beauty of the Wolf is essentially a mixture of Folklore and Fairy tale, telling an intriguing story about looking past outward beauty and seeing the true beauty inside of someone. If you enjoy twisted fairy tales, there’s a good chance you’ll love this, but I’m afraid I was left feeling a bit disappointed overall.
I loved the premise, and the ideas behind this book were great, but on reflection I felt it was the execution that let this one down. There’s a lot of potential but I think some more editing could help.
Overall reaction:
Published by:HQ Stories
Pages: 385
Format:Hardback
My Rating ★★★
For he is the beauty & I be the beast…
In the age of the Faerie Queene, Elizabeth 1, Lord Francis Rodermere starts to lay waste to a forest. Furious, the sorceress who dwells there scrawls a curse into the bark of the first oak he fells:
A faerie boy will be born to you whose beauty will be your death.
Ten years later, Lord Rodermere’s son, Beau, is born – and all who encounter him are struck by his great beauty.
Meanwhile, many miles away in a London alchemist’s cellar, lives Randa – a beast deemed too monstrous to see the light of day.
And so begins a timeless tale of love, tragedy and revenge…
My thoughts
The Beauty of the Wolf, written by award-winning author Sally Gardner under a pseudonym, was a book that caught my interest as soon as I came across it. I really do love a fun fantasy read, not to mention a fairytale retelling, but all in all, I struggled with this one initially. For probably the entire first half of the book, the slow pacing felt as though the plot was just not moving forward at all. Despite the excellent world-building, I felt like I was waiting and waiting to get to the heart of this story, and it wasn’t until about 200 pages or so in that I finally felt some magic in the atmosphere and began to genuinely enjoy the book.
The story is told from three viewpoints: the beauty, the beast, and the sorceress. This actually became really quite confusing at certain points, as it was not always clear who was being referred to as the beauty and who as the beast – this switches around quite a bit between Beau and Randa as the story progresses. The constant changing of the point of view left me unclear about which character was talking.
I (mostly) enjoyed the writing, which felt very poetic and descriptive, but there were definitely moments where it did get a little too over-descriptive. I found the book to be very wordy, with tons of descriptive writing, and this made for a pretty sluggish reading experience.
There were so many interesting characters in The Beauty of The Wolf, with of course Randa and Beau at the heart of the story. Beau is beautiful inside and out but to him his beauty is a curse, not a blessing along with his desire to murder his repulsive father. Beau has a gift bestowed on him by his faerie mother, he can hear the thoughts of certain magical beings and he quickly becomes devoted to a particular voice, which keeps him company in even his loneliest moments. The voice belongs to Randa. Fate brings Beau and Randa together again and eventually Beau sees her in her true form. Despite the love they feel for one another, and the sorceress will stop at nothing to keep them apart.
If only the other characters had been given a little more depth and backstory also, and perhaps fleshed out a tad more, I feel the book would have been more appealing to read, particularly in those first hundred or two pages.
The story was about looking past outward beauty and looking at the beauty inside of someone. The start was slow, but I’m glad I didn’t give up on this one as things actually got a lot better about halfway through, when finally Beau and Randa were able to interact.
The sex scenes were kind of awkward and uncomfortable to read, with the use of slang profanities and language feeling very out of place in a world of magic and fairies. Several of the sex scenes early on in the book felt unnecessary to the plot and I’m still not really sure why they were included.
The Beauty of the Wolf is essentially a mixture of Folklore and Fairy tale, telling an intriguing story about looking past outward beauty and seeing the true beauty inside of someone. If you enjoy twisted fairy tales, there’s a good chance you’ll love this, but I’m afraid I was left feeling a bit disappointed overall.
I loved the premise, and the ideas behind this book were great, but on reflection I felt it was the execution that let this one down. There’s a lot of potential but I think some more editing could help.
Overall reaction:
