Angieville

So we'll just agree to go into this review knowing that I really enjoyed   Rosamund Hodge 's debut novel Cruel Beauty , shall we? In general, fairy tale/Greek mythology mash-ups complete with lovely words are welcome in these parts. And so I confess I was excited but just a little bit sad when I found out the next entry in the world would be a novella. Give me all the pages, please. But. It was to be a Cinderella retelling set in the same world and, as that was clearly awesome, I resolved to take what I could get and be grateful for it. I like this cover, although it's a bit bland for my taste and doesn't inspire quite the same swirling dread as the cover of Cruel Beauty.  I do like what they're doing with the stairs. I think I might have liked a hint of Maia somewhere in there to humanize things. And, as it happens, there is a whole heaping helping of dread in this little book, so something more sinister would have worked splendidly. But, as I said, take what I ...

So I read another Beauty and the Beast retelling. As one does. Cruel Beauty has been on my radar for several months now. The truth is I was a goner when I heard it blended my favorite fairy tale with Greek mythology. Having read it now, another truth is that, in my humble opinion, it would be better billed as a Cupid & Psyche retelling. Not that all the lovely elements of Beauty and the Beast aren't there and thriving. As a matter of fact, threads of several different fairy tales run through the veins of this crazy, lovely book. And I appreciated all of them. But the Greek mythology aspect of it is real and very important to the story as a whole. As such, I think it bears the strongest resemblance to the tale of beleaguered Psyche and the god she weds. I've read a myriad different reactions to Rosamund Hodge 's debut novel, and I can credit all of them because Cruel Beauty is a twisty, mercurial cracker of a tale and most readers are not going to feel mildly about i...

I love the complimentary and contrasting elements between these two. In fact, I love pretty much everything about both of these covers, from the way the spiral staircase entwines with the scarlet folds of the rose on the one to the colorful spine of a vintage airmail envelope on the other. They make me happy. And very curious. Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge Okay, so this one had me at Beauty & the Beast retelling meets Greek mythology. Yespleasethankyou. Raised to kill her betrothed, Nyx vows to break the curse he laid on her people. Of course, appearances can be deceiving, and . . . well . . . the whole thing looks terribly awesome. Due out January 28th That Part Was True by Deborah McKinlay This one is being compared to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society , a book I loved so much I still think about it on a regular basis. Two strangers bond through a shared correspondence and a love of food. They eventually plan to meet up in Paris, but will it happen? A...