A review by jadehi79
The Beast's Heart by Leife Shallcross

2.0

I received a free Arc of this book from First To Read in exchange for an honest review. This book tells the story of The Beauty and the Beast from the Beast's perspective. The author tries to make the Beast sympathetic, but ultimately fails. The Beast knows that the things he does are wrong, yet he continues to do them. This failure isn't necessarily a failure of the author, but of the overall story itself since it's a retelling. The author does give fairly well written descriptions of magic, the castle grounds, and the overall atmosphere of the story setting. The positives in the writing fail to fully make up for the negatives with the overall story, which again are no real fault of the author. Where the author does fail in the story is that, in it being a retelling, he had the opportunity to adjust the story somewhat to make it fresh and new. Instead it's the same story with abusive plotlines, manipulation, kidnapping, and stalker-like behavior. This story is framed as a romance, but it isn't what romance is or should be. Ultimately, if you are a fan of the original story, you will be a fan of this and if you are not a fan of the original story this retelling probably isn't for you.