I’ll start by saying it didn’t surprise me at all to find out that the author has won an award for cinematic storytelling because the first thing that struck me about this book was how beautifully written it was. The descriptions are so lush and evocative that it hooked me before the plot itself did.

I was, for some reason, expecting this to be a historical, which threw me off momentarily, but I soon got over it. That’s a real testament to this book, because normally that would’ve made me completely restart it afresh, but I just wanted to keep reading.

I love how the Colonel was a character in itself. It reminded me of the Last Binding series by Freya Marske, both in the natural magic and the love interest who isn’t “attractive” but who intrigues the MC nevertheless.

I will say, (spoiler) felt obvious early on, which is why I didn’t rate 5 stars. Not a negative of the book, but (and I don’t know how to describe or justify this) the narrative felt like it wanted to be in third person. Every so often I’d have to go back and read a paragraph because I just…expected it to be in third person.

I will admit that I wasn’t expecting to be as emotionally invested as I ended up being by the conclusion. Overall, it just felt like this book snuck up on me.

The thing I think hurts this book is the way it’s been described as a beauty and the beast retelling. I didn’t get that at all, and I think it stands better in its own right. Seeing it as a retelling spoils its magic and undermines how strong and singular it is all by itself.

I think a novella was the perfect length for this queer, closed door Beauty and the Beast retelling. The modern Indiana setting was a unique approach, as was the deep dive into gardening. I liked the practicality of the magic systems. I would have enjoyed more insight into Louis's character, but the brevity of the story and the focus on Ethan's growth didn't allow room for that. The epilogue was excellent. Overall, a sweet story that is clearly a debut, but a promising one.

This is a queer remix of The Beauty and the Beast—think ill father, devoted child, mysterious mansion, cursed inhabitant with plenty of secrets—set in a version of rural Indiana where hedge witches take summer jobs magically helping crops grow. Ethan, who has dropped out of college to help take care of his father and his father’s business, takes an impossible job rehabilitating the rose garden of an isolated Victorian estate, and ends up falling for Louis, the mysterious, cursed trustee.

This was much less Gothic than I expected and much more sweet—magic house that loves you and gets named after a Clue character! Louis starts out gruff but arguably hasn’t hurt anyone but himself! There is a vaguely defined magic system operating mainly in the background. Hedge witches are a thing, which seems to mean a lot of people have a sort of natural magic talent for a specific thing, cue subplot of Ethan reckoning with his magical abilities/apparent lack thereof. The house has an equally vaguely sketched tragic past.

The book’s big strength is, in my opinion, talking about things that really exist. Ethan’s dad has multiple sclerosis and crippling medical debt, but before that, he was a rose rustler—a person who goes on old estates looking for rare, forgotten varieties of roses that can be revived and propagated. The author’s research about roses is what really shone, at least for me. I kept Googling things to do with roses and finding out they were real (delightful, although as the author points out, maybe don’t sacrifice wine to your roses in real life). This and Ethan’s relationship with his father add a lot of character to what would otherwise be a much less memorable romance, and make this well worth a read.

I really enjoyed this. It was short and it went fast but it reads very well and I devoured it. It was a good retelling as well and it kept you intrigued. The character development was strong and so was the pacing throughout the book.