To Beguile a Beast by Elizabeth Hoyt

Series: Legend of the Four Soldiers - Book Three

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages: 349

Copyright: 2009

Rating:


Elizabeth Hoyt has been recommend to me by so many of my reader friends so when I saw the cover of her very latest Historical Romance and heard that it was a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, I knew I just had to read it!

Here's a quick plot summary from the blurb:

Reclusive Sir Alastair Munroe has hidden in his castle ever since returning from the Colonies, scarred inside and out. But when a mysterious beauty arrives at his door, the passions he's kept suppressed for years begin to awaken.

Running from past mistakes has taken legendary beauty Helen Fitzwilliam from the luxury of the ton to a crumbling Scottish castle...and a job as a housekeeper. Yet Helen is determined to start a new life and she won't let dust - or a beast of a man - scare her away.

I loved the brooding hero Alistair and how the physical scars of war made him feel as though he would never find love. So many romance heroes are physically perfect - the image of Adonis - so Alistair's self-consciousness about his physical appearance made him so intriguing and loveable (even if he is a bit of a cranky-pants). When Elizabeth Hoyt described how he came to loose his eye, I had my hand over my mouth. There is something about the emotionally tormented hero that I always connect with.

Helen is a fascinating character. She's a former mistress of a duke and has two young children by him. Before she ran away with her children to Scotland, they had always been cared for by a nanny and in her own words, they only saw each other when they were all in good moods. So not only is she venturing out into the world completely by herself, but she's learning for the first time what it truly means to be a mother. This really added an interesting dimension to the plot and although children can sometimes be distracting in romance novels, Elizabeth Hoyt wrote them incredibly well.

Personally, I didn't like Alistair's reaction to Helen's past. I know that he realised he was being hypocritical but I just don't believe he would've used such strong language towards her and that he would've been so cruel. I would've thought a man who'd virtually exiled himself from society wouldn't have cared so much about the taboo. Issues resolve themselves as the characters realise the mistakes they've made but for me this took a little bit of the enjoyment away from the ending. I guess I just wasn't ready to forgive Alistair yet!

One last thing that I really have to mention because I loved it so much was the mood the author created. For the first half of the book, it really did feel like I could be reading Beauty and the Beast. She really let the brooding Scottish landscape infiltrate the book and lend it a decidedly Gothic feel. The stormy nights and overcast days was the perfect atmosphere for passion! It's definitely a snuggle-up-in-bed-kind-on-a-rainy-day kind of book and is best described as a grown-up fairytale.

I will definitely be reading more Elizabeth Hoyt and look forward to reading her Princes Trilogy in the near future.

Did you know?

You can read a free online novella, The Ice Princess, chapter by chapter here at Elizabeth's website.

The 4th book in the Legend of the Four Soldiers series, To Desire a Devil, will be released in November 2009. You can read an excerpt here and pre-order at Amazon or Book Depository (free postage worldwide).

For more of Annie's reviews, visit Reading, Writing & Ranting.