#Review - The Beast and the Enchantress by Camille Peters #Retelling #Fantasy #Mythology

Series: A Villain's Ever After # 1
Format: Kindle, 198 pages
Release Date: August 10, 2021
Publisher: Rosewood Publications
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Genre: Mythology / Fantasy / Retelling

f there’s one thing Astrid, an aspiring enchantress, has learned throughout her studies, it's that magic must only be used for good. But when an egocentric prince breaks her sister’s heart, Astrid’s only focus is revenge, and what better way to enact it than with a well-chosen curse?

A simple incantation is all it takes to transform the arrogant prince's appearance to match the state of his heart. But something goes wrong, causing the spell to affect not only the prince, but its caster as well. As the curse begins to change her appearance to reflect the state of her own vengeful heart, Astrid becomes desperate to break it at all costs, even if it means entering the castle in disguise and interacting with the prince she loathes.

To her surprise, Astrid encounters not a conceited prince, but one very different from the one she cursed. She soon finds her heart softening, but not in the way she expects—she’s losing it to the cursed prince she has vowed to hate. The closer they become, the more desperate Astrid is to free the prince, and herself, from the curse. But in so doing, she may lose the man she loves forever. For how could a prince ever love the woman who turned him into a beast?

 

The Beast and the Enchantress, by author Camille Peters, is one of twelve short novels in A Villain's Ever After, a collection of standalone stories featuring villainous twists on some of your favorite classic fairy tales. Read the series in any order for magical adventures...and fall in love with villains as you've never seen them before. Who said villains can't have happily-ever-afters? This book is the retelling of Beauty and the Beast with twists.

Astrid is an enchantress-in-training. When she's finished with her apprenticeship, she will serve the crown prince as court magician just as her mentor serves the current king. Astrid's younger sister has a crush on the prince, but when he is cruel to her Astrid sets out to get revenge. She curses Prince Gladen so that his outward appearance will reflect the state of his heart, and when he becomes hideously disfigured Astrid feels justified even though deep down she knows what she did was wrong. 

Unfortunately the curse also affects Astrid herself, and in order to figure out how to break it she has to spend time with the prince. Instead of the callous, self-absorbed monster she'd imagined him to be, she discovers a bitter young man tired of being seen only for his looks and title. The more time she spends with him, the more Astrid loses her own heart to the romantic, bookish person she's discovered lurks under the prince's quick temper. 

I had mixed feelings about Astrid. I admired her devotion to her sister and her love of magic, but her justification in what she does go Gladen goes way beyond being a really bad deal. Then again, Gladen has a bad habit of treating women like a nuisance, and even then, he didn't deserve the anger Astrid puts on him including a dangerous curse that can only be stopped if both characters offer a bit of redemption. 

In the end, this might have been a reimagining of Beauty and the Beast, but it also serves as a cautionary tale about the destructive nature of anger.

Amazon