A gender switched retelling of Beauty and the Beast, set in Elizabethan England.
This novel contains magic, nature, curses, and some truly beautiful descriptive language. There are themes of sexuality, beauty and body positivity which bring a serious touch to the work; but mainly this is a lush and lovely imaginative tale which has a lot to recommend it.

I couldn't get through this. It was just so slow and the sexual content didn't seem to fit the rest of the writing style.

I DNF'd this book at 25%.

I'm gutted about this because I love Beauty and The Beast retellings. However, the writing style was very flowery and dense which is a writing style I don't enjoy unfortunately.

Thank you for the opportunity though. The cover is beautiful.

This retelling of Beauty and the Beast had some interesting and original twists such as the gender reversal but I struggled to get into it mainly because the prose whilst rich was extremely dense.
This may be a matter of personal taste and I am sure that it could appeal to others.

This book was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I have to mention how beautiful the cover of this book is - so much so I was drawn in by it I think. I enjoyed the idea of an adult take on Beauty and the Beast, with a play on gender roles and Elizabeth I thrown in as well, In fact that’s a synopsis that could have been written for me! This is an author with a great imagination, but there were maybe a few too many ideas in one place. I thought the change in gender roles was interesting, especially since female beauty is still greatly prized and in the age of social media, women in the public eye are pilloried for their looks. I found the many changes of narrator stopped the flow of the story for me, although I didn’t mind the flowery sentences or bawdiness. I think it tried to do too many things at once and may have worked better as a short story or novella,

The Beauty of the Wolf is a clever and unique take on the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale. Beauty and the Beast is one of my favourite fairy tales so I was incredibly intrigued to see how Wray Delaney would tackle the well loved story.

The Beauty of the Wolf follows Lord Rodermere, who whilst destroying a forest is cursed by the faerie Queene to have a faerie child whose beauty will ultimately result in his death. This story is quite a slow burn and takes a while for the action to get going. I really liked Delaney's writing style which felt very beautiful and dreamlike.

The story features multiple points of view, and I felt this didn't give the reader much chance to really get to know the characters. This retelling is definitely an adult one with sexual references throughout. The Beauty of the Wolf is a fascinating take on a beloved tale and if you love historical fantasy with gorgeous prose - this could be exactly what you're looking for.

<b>4 Mar 2020 NG feedback/FYI:</b> Apologies for delayed feedback. Was double-checking my NG shelves against personal records when I noticed this title.

I have a decline email for this title, so not sure what happened. I’m wondering if I wished/requested on UK site, and then requested on US site? But even if DL'd at some point, I no longer have a review copy due to HD failures.

Having read ‘An Almond for a Parrot’ as pre-screen for youngsters, I still have this title on wishlist in case local library fulfills my rec.

Whichever site/imprint approved, thanks so much!

~rated 3 stars to submit feedback~

I've tried to get into this book several times now, but the language is so overblown and flowery that it's like running head-first into a brick wall. It seems to be aping a mix of classic fairy tale and Elizabethan romance, but it mostly served to distance me so far from the events actually happening that I cannot bring myself to read more than a few pages at a time. I'm not someone daunted by older texts or even reading in archaic forms of English, but this wasn't consistent enough to get into the flow of (like, say, The Faerie Queene), because it is trying to combine that allegorical, poetic style with a modern concept of plot and character. If you can get into it, it might be brilliant, but it's not one I want to persevere with. DNF at 17%.

I persevered with this book as the writing was so beautifully done and the descriptions so mesmerising. A gothic faerie tale, it was somewhat confusing at times, but all in all a good read for a winters night.

When I first started reading this I really adored it, I loved how dark it was and the writing. However, as the novel progressed, the story seemed to get confusing and I was finding it hard to remain interested. I also wasn't expecting the strong sexual language in this and it broke me out of the story, I didn't see how it was necessary and it was just distracting to be honest. This had a lot of potential and so I am disappointed. I think that there will be very mixed opinions about this book, but it just sadly wasn't for me.

Wasn't able to read and give feedback before book was removed from e-reader


'What some might call beauty, I find monstrous'

In the age of the Faerie Queene, Elizabeth I, Lord Francis Rodermere starts to lay waste to a forest.

Furious, the sorceress who dwells there scrawls a curse into the bark of the first oak he fells:

A faerie boy will be born to you whose beauty will be your death.

Ten years later, Lord Rodermere’s son, Beau is born – and all who encounter him are struck by his great beauty.

Meanwhile, many miles away in a London alchemist’s cellar lives Randa – a beast deemed too monstrous to see the light of day.

And so begins a timeless tale of love, tragedy and revenge…

This book had so much promise but unfortunately it was a huge struggle to read
The plot moved so slowly and it was so confusing
The story was dull,tedious and confusing
A major disappointment

I loved this re-telling. During the time I was reading this story, it continued into my dreams…

The descriptions in The Beauty of the Wolf are so vibrant – plenty of times I wished I had a skill for drawing or painting so that I could bring the images to life. As much as I enjoyed scenes in the forest at Rodermere, I loved the time we spend in Elizabethan London more.

I enjoyed the author’s style of writing. My favourite personifications:

“Night had reached the hour when it wraps itself starless in its frozen cloth.”

and

“The bells of a distant church chime midnight, the unforgiving hour when yesterday tips what is best forgotten into the new day.”

Like all original fairy tales, The Beauty of the Wolf is dark and full of shadows. It invites us down the path of experiencing things that might make us feel uncomfortable by pushing us out of our comfort zones but offers so much reward in doing so. The moral is very fitting for contemporary life. What if the first time you looked in a mirror was in your teens? Would your outward appearance reflect who you were on an inner level? You’ll find the usual tropes but be prepared for twists.

An outstanding read.

The Beauty of the Wolf is kind of a retelling of Beauty and the Beast with some other elements to it, it is a darker story than the beauty and the beast we know and somehow more sinister. It was quite a dense book and very slow at times but I'm happy I continued on with it because the ending was very satisfying. I don't think I felt particularly attached to any character but they were all very interesting and well fleshed out.

I’m not a fairytale reading kinda gal but the synopsis for this book intrigued me so I requested permission to read it. As I began reading I genuinely thought I’d made a mistake as the story didn’t appear to be my cup of tea but I preserved and I’m pleased that I did as it grew on me the further I read.

Although I didn’t feel particularly attached to any of the characters within the story, I was interested in what became of them and how the story panned out. As I mentioned, I’m not generally a fan of fairytales or fantasy books but I did like this more than I thought I would.

Many thanks to HQ and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

A retelling of the fairy tale Beauty and the beast. A child cursed to be so beautiful, His destiny to kill his father. A beast born half woman half beast. A sorceress blinded by revenge for the willful destruction of her kingdom.
Full of interesting and surprising characters and a plot to pull on your heartstrings. A joy to read.

"The L of longing, a fortress that crumples defeated into the O of a world of wooden hope, then the V, the void, the violence of desire, all held in place by the cheating E that promises an eternity of endings."

Lord Francis Rodermere, an ignorant, wealthy man who inherits part of an enchanted forest, ignores the warning of the Sorceress to leave the sacred oaks of the forest alone, and begins to destroy the forest for his own materialistic needs. Furious, the Sorceress lays a curse on him;
"A faerie boy will be born to you whose beauty will be your death."
Lord Rodermere, decidedly ignores the curse, until one day he disappears without a trace, and nine months later a baby, swaddled in a basket, is laid at the door of Lord Rodermere's home and received by his wife, Lady Eleanor. Eleanor accepts the baby boy into her fold and sets about making sure nobody doubts the child is hers.
Eighteen years later, the child, Beau, has grown into an enchantingly stunning individual and possesses the kind of beauty that could stop the Earth from spinning. On the day of Lady Eleanor's new marriage, Lord Rodermere returns, forcing Eleanor, her new love, and her daughter to flee for their safety, and leaving Lord Rodermere with his son, Beau, who is foretold as his undoing.

As a plaintive sucker for a Beauty and the Beast retelling, I expected myself to enjoy this a lot more than I actually did. However, I will say, this is the most unconventional Beauty and the Beast retelling I have ever read, and if your fairytale preferences ventures more towards the dark than the fluffy, I recommend this book to you.

I sincerely enjoyed the reversed gender roles, in that the Beast of the story is a female and the Beauty a male, adding that as well as strong themes of androgyny made for a really diverse read.

The tone was mystical, abrasive, and had an overpowering descriptive urgency to it. Although the story states that it wasn't set in a particular time period, there were references to Elizabeth I, and even a cameo of William Shakespeare towards the end of the novel. I enjoyed the historical treasures and slightly archaic dialogue that works so well in fairy tales.

I didn't enjoy the constant innuendos and erotic references layered consistently throughout the story, it felt out of place and more like plot fodder than necessarily relevant romances.

I found that the slow pace of the story, coupled with the heavy prose, made it difficult to really focus on the story line, which I kept forgetting due to the overpowering language. Ultimately, this was the main reason that I could not enjoy this novel.

Also, the abrupt changes in the point of view gave me a feeling of literary whiplash as each point of view was extremely deep and emotionally draining. The sorceress's sections seemed particularly heavy and it would have been easy to drown in her chapters.

Honestly, with regards to the characters, I think that the true villain in this story, Lord Rodermere, acted as my favourite character. The author paints him as so perfectly vile that I really believed in his existence whereas the other characters, even the main ones, were more forgettable and less solid.
"What made him a tyrant was that no one knew when the storm in him would break, and wherever the lightening struck it left its scars."

Overall, it was a slow, heavy read. But absolute full marks on originality. The author perhaps gave the story line too much thought and could have held back a bit in parts. I didn't enjoy this dark and gloomy retelling due to my personal preferences, but if this piques your interest then I wouldn't discount it.

Thank you to Net Galley and HQ for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

“So few of us are born to be ourselves; we are but the dreams of lovers, of mothers and fathers who long for us to step where their feet never dared.”

So let’s talk about the cover! Isn’t it absolutely stunning? It’s the very first thing that strikes you about this book. I was sold at the very first glance!

Then what draws you in is the blurb! The plot is so very promising and intriguing. Beauty and the Beast retold with a role reversal? Damn!

Important themes like Gender Fludity, Sexuality and Body Positivity is brilliantly acknowledged and explored through this book.

The premise and what she tried to do with it really had great potential. But how the content came to be is somewhat praiseworthy and somewhat disappointing.

The charecters lacked depth and the pacing was slow. I was very much fixated on the original story, and the crude language of this book threw me off. Words like “prick” etc. offset my enjoyabilty. The language kept destroying the delicate world I tried to imagine.

But it becomes a lot more fascinating if you read it as a completely different story. If you drop your preconceived notions that you hold on from the classic and read it in fact as an Adult fiction, you get to see this book in a whole new light. In all its fierce form.

The writing was flowery but yet hard to get into. The story, impressionable.

The Beauty of the Wolf' is every bit as rich and stunning as you would expect from having read Sally Gardner's other works, hwever, I can see from other reviews that some readers regarded it as Y.A. It is absolutely an adult novel, as apart from the language and sexual content,it reads like one.

However, I can completely appreciate the confusion as there have been quite a few retellings of fairy tales, most of which have been aimed at the Y.A market over the last year-but I personally think it unfair to judge a book by its (rather luscious) cover design.

The book is full of allegories-set in the time of Elizabeth the 1st, this is world where ‘modern’ thinking is set against superstition, old ways versus new.

And, as usual, when the world changes it is the rights of women and the ways of nature which get steamrolled over in man’s urge to build the tallest house (the House of Three Turrets in this case) or subvert long held beliefs (the treatment of the Widow Bott, midwife and herbalist).

Warned not to cut down any more sacred oaks by the sorceress who lives in the forest, the arrogant and cruel Lord Rodermere ignores her pleas and invites a curse upon his family.

However, as with the best of fairy tales, there is not always a cut and dried solution to the curse. Firstly, the son,Beau, whose beauty will be not only the undoing of him but also the death of his father,is not easily conceived so the sorceress and fae folf intervene.Then, the wording of the sorceress’ plea, written in gold on an oak tree chopped down by Rodermere, is open to interpretation…

I genuinely loved this book, the twist on the tale, the historical setting, the unsahamedly feminist plot-I finished the book wanting more!
It’s very intimate, as though written like a bedtime story for adults and manages to weave together a time of upheaval (the destruction of the monasteries courtesy of Elizabeth’s father)the destruction of the environment and themes of greed and selfishness so well that you cannot see the stitiching.

And at the centre of it is Beau, the child whose beauty will kill his father (almost like a reverse Medusa)and Randa, daughter of an alchemist left to fend for herself after her father is taken by Rodermere,in a world where beauty and appearance is prized more than moral fibre or character.

Their story is the beating heart of ‘The Beauty of the Wolf’ and this is what I loved most of all-it is the centre of this forest entangled by the machinations of all around them that keeps you reading to the very last page.

As always, this is just this humble reader’s opinion, but I would recommend this if you enjoy the work of Katherine Dunn, Angela Carter,Theodora Goss and Sarah Waters.

Beauty of the Wolf has all the things I enjoy in a fairy tale - a sorceress (not so much evil as beyond mortal morality), a curse and a child who is as good as they are beautiful. But everything is slightly subverted: the curse is one of beauty and the beautiful child is a boy. The gender swap isn't limited to Beau, the child cursed with both perfect features and the Oedipal promise of bringing about the death of his own father, but also in the human villain. For a change the 'baddie' isn't a step-mother but a monstrous father - Lord Rothermere, a vicious boor who destroys forests and maidens - and the Beast is a girl who escapes from her own father to the land of the King of the Beasts. In fact, if you look at versions of the story beyond Disney, there are lots of little touches picked up here and there (the rose, the Beast's near death and even an actual monkey butler): this is lovely, detailed storytelling. Add into this the Elizabethan setting, with a group of travelling players, alchemy and Faeries, and I was suddenly spotting Shakespearean references everywhere - mostly a blend of The Tempest and Midsummer Night's Dream.

If you like your fairytale retellings a bit bawdy and with a certain fluidity of gender then you should enjoy this. I certainly did.