A tale that never grows old!

Beauty Reborn by Elizabeth Lowham         

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Scintillating, heartfelt retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Lowham ensorcelled my heart with a story that’s creatively original in its telling, and lyrical in its execution.

Beauty has two sisters, a brother and a father whose fortunes as a merchant sank with his ship.

Forced to sell everything and live in a humble cottage near the enchanted Forest, the family endures 

Beauty at seventeen is a whimsical young woman who fancies herself in love with the local Baron’s son. He asks her to marry him but she refuses due to having older sisters. They must marry first. He persists. The third time he asks and she says NO, is when he confronts her alone in the house, in her bedroom. I can say no more!

Beauty goes to cut down some wood in the Forest. She chops into a living tree. Alarmed by her own actions she bandages the cut near the root and covers it with dirt. This is her first momentary glimpse of something that looks like a blue fairy.

Her father returns from hunting in the Forest with a rose he’s taken from the castle garden for Beauty. Beauty knows her father will have to pay. She sneaks out and goes in her father’s stead, standing at the gate and calling on the Beast.

Now the storyline takes us on a journey of loss, of understanding and of wishing. Magical!

A Shadow Mountain ARC via NetGalley.                                              

Many thanks to the author and publisher.