An obnoxious beast

This story chronicles the relationship between Lord Beswick, the beast, and Lady Astrid, the beauty. The Beast disfigured by a horrific attack during his service in war left him bitter, enraged, and emotionally empty. He lives his life on the offensive striking first to stop the cruel comments that he knows are coming. His aggressive and often mean spirited behavior facilitates his desire to be left alone to tend to his properties and avoid interacting with society.
Lady Astrid is bold, assertive, and the emotional care taker and protector of her younger sister. The catalyst that drives the first part of the book is the threat of an arranged marriage between the younger sister and a Lord who is beneath contempt. We find Astrid committing a desperate act in order to eliminate her uncle’s guardianship over her sister, thus stopping the threat of the arranged marriage. To do this Astrid must marry passing the guardianship to her new husband. So, Astrid, having never met the Beast, drops in on him and proposes marriage under the assumption that he would be grateful that she would marry him and provide him with an heir. In exchange he would protect her sister.
Unfortunately her plan goes awry and the Beast declines her proposal, he is not interested in marrying nor in producing an heir ……yet.
The Beast is intrigued by her and enjoys her intelligence and bravery in speaking her mind. He also becomes obsessed sexually with her and she with him.
Her sister’s marriage appears to be a forgone conclusion causing Beswick to take matters into his own hands obtaining a special license and marrying Astrid.
The resolution to the sister’s dilemma is somewhat contrived with a new suitor magically coming from out of no where.
The book, although a bit too long, does a good job of identifying the extreme emotional problems associated with experiencing a violent life changing event especially one that results in a gross physical deformity. Issues of self loathing, trust, and moving forward are addressed appropriately within the confines of a romance novel. I recommend the book to a reader looking for a steamy romance with realistic portrayals of the effects of emotional and physical trauma. The narration was good - easy to listen to and the characters voices were clear and age appropriate.

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6 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Masterful Beauty and the Beast Story

Nina Nato does an excellent job narrating this historical romance by Amalie Howard, which is both poignant and steamy. It is a well-written novel, and I really enjoyed it. Plus, it is always great when the heroine rescues the hero! Lady Astrid Everleigh and Thane (Nathaniel) Harte, scarred, reclusive Duke of Beswick are well-matched as the main characters falling in love, and the secondary, supporting characters are enjoyable too - including Fletcher, Culbert and Aunt Mabel, Lady Verne.
4.5 stars rounded up to 5

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1 personne a trouvé cela utile

Good overall.

Beauty and the beast trope is one I enjoy and I did enjoy this one. Full characters, awful bad guy, two lousy relatives and really smart heroine and hero, historical England and HEA. All boxes checked. I would have preferred a bit less repetitive internal monologue as it was, well, repetitive - the same over and over. See, needless extra words. Less is often "more" at least when it comes to fine writing. Nina Nato is new to me as a narrator and found her up to the task of many varied voices.

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Had to stop at Chpt22

I couldn’t take the torture any longer! The story went on and on. The constant angst throughout the whole story between the H/H, and the mediocre narration had me pulling my hair out. Don’t waste your credit.

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Poor narration ruined it

I listened through 10 chapters then couldn’t stand any more. It’s really hard to tell if the book would have benefited from a better narrator. Not a repeat listen for me.

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Best Beast Ever

I was hooked from the first words of this book. Loved everything about it. Narrator was fantastic.

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Great retelling of beauty and the beast

I was wrapped up from the beginning. Olive s strong heroine and this did not disappoint. But I wonder what Queen Victoria would say about the horrible things said about her son.

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Loved every single min of this.

Voicing done so week, no accidental switches no missing genre or character. The flow and life was perfect. I (Lindsey) absolutely loved it. I’m a sucker for the B&B sub genre and this one was done so very very well. I’d love to see a novella follow up on the school and the investigation and any money put into helping the wounded and killed groups families. ❤️❤️ A+ 10/10

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Pretty enjoyable Regency romance

So I’m going to start with my issues with this book:
(1) the whiplash, Thane went back and forth between giving the romance a chance only to push his wife away time and again. On the one hand I loved that she didn’t give up, on the other, women who allow men to shit on them time and again kinda piss me off too: fool me twice sort of thing. I suspect that this back and forth was for more smecks on the page… I really dislike sacrificing story just for smecks, it should be organic and fit in the story, not fitting the story around the smecks.
(2) number 1 would not have been as big a deal with some better characterization and more showing than telling. We are told a lot about how damaged Thane is but don’t see it: we don’t get flashbacks of his injuries, residual pain, PTSD, rejection from ladies after his injuries. I think if we had gotten more of that it would have helped the story. Like for example: WHY didn’t he want kids? I literally have NO idea!
All that being said, and in spite of my suspicions about the term “patriarchy” being bandied about in Regency England, I did enjoy the book, it had a good pace and i was interested in the resolution. I loved the heroine for the most part and it had a good premise. The epilogue was lovely and satisfying.

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Villain

So, I enjoyed the story. It was a basic historical romance with a strong heroine. I was entertained for the most part. I was disappointed with the non villainous villain.

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