REVIEW: Beauty and the Werewolf

By Denise @ Life With No Plot on August 26, 2024 • ( 1 )

About the Book

Title: Beauty and the Werewolf

Author: Mercedes Lackey

Series: Five Hundred Kingdoms #6

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 329

Edition Read: Kindle eBook

Dates Read: August 12-19, 2024

Blurb: The eldest daughter is often doomed in fairy tales. But Bella—Isabella Beauchamps, daughter of a wealthy merchant—vows to escape the usual pitfalls.

Anxious to avoid the traditional path, Bella dons a red cloak and ventures into the forbidden forest to consult with “Granny,” the local wisewoman. But on the way home she’s attacked by a wolf—who turns out to be a cursed nobleman. Secluded in his castle, Bella is torn between her family and this strange man who creates marvelous inventions and makes her laugh—when he isn’t howling at the moon.

Bella knows all too well that breaking spells is never easy. But a determined beauty, a wizard (after all, he’s only an occasional werewolf) and a little Godmotherly interference might just be able to bring about a happy ending.

Review

This was such a nice way to finish out this series. As the series and the blurb suggests, this is sort of a mashup between Beauty and the Beast and Little Red Riding Hood. There’s also a hint of Cinderella, since Bella does have a stepmother and two stepsisters (they aren’t evil though, just kind of flighty). A large part of the story is just to figure out whether or not Bella is going to end up turning into a werewolf herself since she was bitten by the werewolf, also known as Duke Sebastian. She has to stay at Sebastian’s estate for three months to make sure that nothing changes when the full moon comes around.

What’s fun about this story is how Bella learns about The Tradition and, with the help of Godmother Elena, tries to manipulate it enough to avoid a bad ending for herself. It was really nice seeing Elena being a good part of this story since she was the one who first started off this series in book #1, The Fairy Godmother. Sebastian is also an absolute darling. I do have a soft spot for the nerdy wizard type.

As far as the villain of the story, I’m not going to go there, since there was a lot of misdirection that made things at first see obvious, then not, then obvious, then not. And then it was completely different from what I thought it would be. I always love when stories surprise me.

So glad I revisited this series and FINALLY FINISHED IT!!!

GoodReads Rating: 4 stars