A review by virgo_reader
Wicked Abyss by Kresley Cole

5.0

Beauty and the Beast where the Beauty prefers the hero as the Beast... YES. 

This is second chance (reincarnation where the heroine doesn't remember her former life), fated mates, beauty and the beast where the beast is continually deteriorating, a hell landscape, and a magical castle who can act as an independent entity.

I thought the premise of the story was super interesting. The hero was a twin to the monster we met in Shadow's Claim - he had joined the competition for the heroine of that book's hand in marriage. Everyone reviled him as a disgusting monster because he was huge, scary, and any blood spilled literally produced "child" monsters from his body. And in this book we learn that he was a soft spoken boy who wanted to create a better life for the people of his realm, a version of hell. I don't know if it was intentional but showing this alternate to someone we didn't interact with in a previous book but all assumed was disgusting was... surprisingly sad. 

Now that the hero, Abyssian aka Sian has taken the throne of hell, he has turned monster. The curse of ruling over hell is that you and the realm are connected - you have incredible magic in hell but you will slowly turn into a hellish creature. At the start of the book Sian has changed from a handsome man to a literal demon: gray skin with runes, piercings all over his face and body, huge horns, wings, a monstrous face and feet, etc. He will continue to get more monstrous forever unless he finds "the Hellfire" - a cryptic statement made by his mother before she passed. 

There's definitely some angst in this book - Sian holds a grudge against Lila because of her former life, even though she doesn't remember it. But Lila really holds her own and because she wasn't a wilting flower it made it so fun to read. She's a trickster queen!