Beauty knows the Beast’s forest in her bones—and in her blood. Though she grew up with the city’s highest aristocrats, far from her father’s old lodge, she knows that the forest holds secrets and that her father is the only hunter who’s ever come close to discovering them.

So when her father loses his fortune and moves Yeva and her sisters back to the outskirts of town, Yeva is secretly relieved. Out in the wilderness, there’s no pressure to make idle chatter with vapid baronessas…or to submit to marrying a wealthy gentleman. But Yeva’s father’s misfortune may have cost him his mind, and when he goes missing in the woods, Yeva sets her sights on one prey: the creature he’d been obsessively tracking just before his disappearance.

Deaf to her sisters’ protests, Yeva hunts this strange Beast back into his own territory—a cursed valley, a ruined castle, and a world of creatures that Yeva’s only heard about in fairy tales. A world that can bring her ruin or salvation. Who will survive: the Beauty, or the Beast?

This was my first Meagan Spooner novel. I've been meaning to read the Starbound trilogy for years now and haven't gotten around to it. So I had no expectations of the author; I just wanted an awesome Beauty and the Beast retelling.

I enjoyed this. I did. But I wasn't blown away by it. And even though Meagan Spooner took Beauty and the Beast and made it her own, different thing, I still feel that there are better retellings out there. It honored the original story; it made Beauty into an awesome, arrow-wielding hunter with a thirst for vengeance. But I couldn't fall into it or the characters. Especially, Beast. The "Beast" in most retellings is my favorite character; he is so dynamic in nature. But we had very few glimpses into this Beast's head and we were never told how he became the Beast. I really didn't like that. He wasn't as developed as Yeva/Beauty was, and I think that's a shame.

The whole story was quiet--muted, even. And the pacing was really slow. The first ninety pages were set-up, and once you get into the thick of it, you expect the pace to pick up but it never does. It stayed slow and steady. And the romance was very lackluster, too. I expected swoon for days, and I was like "WHERE ARE THEY!??!?!" Very underwhelmed, indeed.

In the end, I just wanted to love it more because of how much I love Beauty and the Beast. And while this was interesting, I didn't get what I wanted out of it. I have to go find another retelling to sate my craving; time to read A Court of Thorns and Roses again.