Thursday 18 December 2014

Review: Sleeping Beauty and the Beast by Melissa Lemon

22246544Title: Sleeping Beauty and the Beast
Author: Melissa Lemon
Genre: fantasy, fairytale-retelling, Young Adult
Publication date: June 24th 2014
Pages: 202 (paperback)
Source: received from author
Buy links: Amazon






Trapped in a cursed sleep, the only experiences Princess Eglantine has are the ones in her dreams. There she meets Prince Henry of Fallund, a neighboring kingdom on the brink of war. 

Meanwhile, Prince Henry's brother Duncan discovers a vicious beast imprisoned for murder. Captivated by her, he works to free her from both the prison bars she's locked behind and the ones surrounding her heart and mind. Sleeping Beauty and the Beast reinvents and seamlessly intertwines the classic fairy tales Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast. 




Sleeping Beauty and the Beast is a rather unique fairytale retelling. Like the title already suggests it combines Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast. And the author did it in a unique way, the whole book was unique. It was a very different fairytale retelling than I’ve ever read before.

Princess Eglantine, the sleeping beauty, has been dreaming for years. But suddenly her dreams seem to become more real. Prince Henry seems to see and hear her, Eglantine can’t be happier finally someone she can communicate with. But Henry on the other hand is not so thrilled. Is he losing his mind? Has the stress of ruling a country alone finally taken his toll? Or is Eglantine real?
Duncan, Henry’s brother, wants nothing to do with ruling the country. He rather rooms the street to see what’s happening. It’s there that he comes across “the beast”, a girl fighting off guards that want to imprison her like her life depends on it. Somehow Duncan can’t get this girl out of his mind, he knows that she’s a criminal but he still want to help her. But why?

I really liked all the twists the book took. Everything connected together. While some things might have been confusing while reading the book it all made sense in the end. Sleeping Beauty and the Beast, was very descriptive. You had a perfect sense of location, clothing and everything else.
 The characters are all well developed. And you can’t help liking them all and you really feel everything they have to endure. They all have their own distinctive voices. Henry and Duncan might have been brothers but they couldn’t have been more different. Duncan is the wild one, while Henry is the responsible one. And “the beast” she shows that not everything is as it might seem at first and bot the girl and Eglantine show us to never give up. There is always hope.

Overall I really liked this book. It might not have been my favorite fairytale retelling ever but I really appreciated the uniqueness of this book. So if you are looking for a fairytale retelling with a new twist than you should really check out Sleeping Beauty and the Beast


Author bio

Melissa LemonMelissa Lemon is the author of two other fairy tale retellings: Cinder and Ella and Snow Whyte and the Queen of Mayhem. She is also the author of a sweet romance called Blue Sky. Writing is just one of her passions. She also loves music, reading, baking and exercising. She is wife to a patient man, mother of three spunky girls, and warden to a tolerant cat named Matilda.

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