Once there lived a girl, who lived in Thanona, a little provential village. Her mother was dead, her father was a ruined merchant turned inventor, and her sisters were babied. They missed the life they lived before their father's ruin, in the city. But not her.
Arabella Durand is happy in the village. She runs her father's house, and takes on all the responsibility therein. But when she catches the eye of the most eligible bachelor in the village, whom she finds arrogant and boarish, Arabella is distraught. After being forced to plan a wedding she doesn't want, due to a misunderstanding, Arabella goes out into the woods to clear her head. She soon gets lost, and comes across a ruined castle. And once she goes inside, she becomes the prisoner of a monster.
But sometimes things aren't always what they seem. Love and hatred, jealousy and admiration, monsters and men: they are separated by a fine line. And when that line blurs, Arabella must learn what the difference in truth and reality is.
(COMPLETED! Well, the rough draft, at least)
"As soon as you believe you are a monster is when you become one."
After many years of war, the kingdom of Edria is finally in an era of peace--peace obtained by one thing and one thing only.
A deal.
King Regol has made a deal with the devil, or rather, a beast. A monster.
Or so he claims.
When he uses the deal for his own advantage, he threatens a girl named Zara, who has had everything but her family taken away.
Zara is ordered to kill the beast Regol made a deal with, unbenownst to her that the deal even exists. When her attempt fails, she is left with two choices: to never go back home, or to learn from the beast so she can take back what is hers.
She faces dangers on the castle grounds she thought were only stories; magic, creatures that kill a person in a single puff of air, and lastly, the beast, who can barely control the darkness that has buried itself in him for years.
The longer she is on the castle grounds, however, the more she realizes everything is more than it seems...
...and that she has a power she could only dream about.
****
A retelling of Beauty and the Beast
Wonderful cover by @nicegirlsreadbooks
Highest rank: #1 in Fantasy
#4 in Adventure