Synopsis:

“Could you love me?” he whispered. The question stole my breath and burned my lungs in the silence that followed.

I wanted to answer, to whisper yes into the space between us, but I was afraid.

All Gesela’s life, her home village of Elk has been cursed. And it isn’t a single curse—it is one after another, each to be broken by a villager, each with devastating consequences. When Elk’s well goes dry, it is Gesela’s turn to save her town by killing the toad that lives at the bottom. Except… the toad is not a toad at all. He is an Elven prince under a curse of his own, and upon his death, his brothers come for Gesela, seeking retribution.

As punishment, the princes banish Gesela to live with their seventh brother, the one they call the beast. Gesela expects to be the prisoner of a hideous monster, but the beast turns out to be exquisitely beautiful, and rather than lock her in a cell, he offers Gesela a deal. If she can guess his true name in seven days, she can go free.

Gesela agrees, but there is a hidden catch—she must speak his name with love in order to free him, too.

But can either of them learn to love in time?

Rating:

Review:

This littler novella was a lot of fun and a good use of my time overall. There were a lot of things about it that I really loved. The incorporation of several different fairy tales was a nice touch and she weaved them together quite well. The entire thing also has an atmosphere surrounding it that’s creepy, dark, foreboding and very menacing. I felt that was all very true to the fairy tales that she was drawing inspiration from, a lot of them have a similar tone.

The characters were also well done. Gesela is a woman of the village that produced her. She has watched countless of her fellow villages experience horrific consequences of being forced to break a curse. She recounts people who were carried away by monsters, others who were turned into monsters, still others who ended up being enchanted to do things like eat themselves to death. But, the villagers must keep breaking the curses, because otherwise the entire town will be doomed. It’s a sacrifice for the good of the many. Except now it’s her turn.

Fairly soon the book because….well, quite raunchy. I am not opposed to some good smut but I didn’t expect it in such a short novella. We didn’t have much time. In fact, that is one of my biggest complaints about this book. The entire middle is just sex. Lots and lots of sex. Very creative sex. Intense sex. Passionate sex. Angry sex. Under a spell sex. These two characters pretty much screw themselves into falling in love. The rest of the plot fell to the wayside because those two were too busy…well, you get the idea.

The ending felt rushed, probably because we spent so much time on sex. Err, falling in love. That was supposed to be the point after all. In the end I was left slightly disappointed. The world and the plot had so many wonderful things about it. There was so much richness and horror left to be explored. And then it was over and we didn’t get to explore it because it was all about the sex. A disappointing journey overall, but I would definitely read this author again.