New York Times bestselling author Meagan Spooner spins a thoroughly thrilling Beauty and the Beast story for the modern age, expertly woven with spellbinding romance, intrigue, and suspense that readers won’t soon be able to forget.Beauty knows the Beast’s forest in her bones—and in her blood. After all, her father is the only hunter who’s ever come close to discovering its secrets.So when her … discovering its secrets.
So when her father loses his fortune and moves Yeva and her sisters out of their comfortable home among the aristocracy and back to the outskirts of town, Yeva is secretly relieved. Out in the wilderness, there’s no pressure to make idle chatter with vapid baronessas…or to submit to marrying a wealthy gentleman.
But Yeva’s father’s misfortune may have cost him his mind, and when he goes missing in the woods, Yeva sets her sights on one prey: the creature he’d been obsessively tracking just before his disappearance. The Beast.
Deaf to her sisters’ protests, Yeva hunts this strange creature back into his own territory—a cursed valley, a ruined castle, and a world of magical creatures that Yeva’s only heard about in fairy tales. A world that can bring her ruin, or salvation.
Who will survive: the Beauty, or the Beast?
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Wonderfully written, never boring, interesting twist on Beauty and the Beast! I loved every minute of it! I loved all the characters too!
Hunted is a beautiful retelling of Beauty and the Beast (please don’t think Disney). Yeva/Beauty once lived in the forest with her father and two sisters. Yeva loved to hunt with her father and hear his fairy tales about magical creatures who lived in the forest. The family moves to the city only to move back the forest cabin after the father loses his money and business. This tale truly starts with Teva looking out of the window in the city and wishing to return home to the forest and hunting that she dearly loves. This return to the forest results in changes to the family’s dynamics and with Yeva/Beauty slowly falling for the forest creature called Beast. The sharing of space and caring between Beauty the the Beast during the days and months in the forest are both touching and at times subtly disturbing. Only you can decide if Beauty and the Beast live happily ever after. A wonderful YA book.
Hunted is a young-adult retelling of two interwoven fairy tales: Beauty and the Beast and Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf. I am familiar with both of these fairy tales (although admittedly, Hunted prompted me to re-read Tsarevitch Ivan recently), and Meagan Spooner excelled at braiding them together with new notes while keeping a feeling of nostalgia, dark elegance, and the many life lessons that fairy tales so ingeniously provide. Added elements created suspense, mystery, and an intelligent heroine who is far from a victim. Although the storytelling flow felt slow much of the time, I thoroughly enjoyed this retelling and would recommend it. I found the audiobook to be excellent as the heroine’s voice sounded almost identical to Belle’s in Disney’s animated Beauty and the Beast, which to me helped keep a feeling of innocence to this new tale. Check it out!
My favorite quote:
“We thought too much. Because while hatred is a fire only man feels, he does not hate the beast that comes in the night. Mankind fears it, fights it, drives it off, but he does not hate it. No one hates the bear, the wolf. They don’t hate the wind or the snow. They don’t hate the death. They hate each other.”
I am giving this story 1,000 stars. Why its beauty is not being shouted from the rooftops I have no idea. I am in utter bewilderment at the pure beauty and brilliance of this story. I could not have loved this story more. Sure at its basics is is a story about a girl saving a prince/beast but it is also so much more. There is heart and determination, morals and lessons, as well as the elegance in which the story is told. The realness and magic within the fantasy, the heart and breathtaking moments, it is all felt within the reader. Brilliant.
I loved that this was unique and truly wonderful. It made me feel like I was reading an adult beauty and the beast and I loved it.
A Delightful, well written read!I loved the main Character! I am looking for her other books!
3.5 stars
I love retellings and this one has interested me for a while. I was hooked from the beginning, the story of the forests other world was a really good touch. The core story followed the same guidelines as Beauty and the Beast, but it was so unique in how it was laid out there were so many times it seemed like a completely different story. While I was hooked for most of the book, the ending fell a little flat for me. I am not sure if it was the lack of connection between Beauty and the Beast or the anticlimactic way the curse was broken.
Interesting and thought provoking retelling of Beauty and the Beast story. Strong female lead.
This book is an interesting retelling of beauty and the Beast.
I really enjoyed the interactions between beauty and the Beast on this book, the way she started to tell stories, although the epilogue wasn’t as good as I expected, but anyway this was a good read.
A great fairy tale retelling with a darker, more twisted edge. Also has a good theme, too, one I think a lot of people can relate to.
A Beauty and the Beast retell?? Yes please! This was a fantastic book, and the only reason it’s missing a star is because I wish there was some sort of romance in it. Other than that, it was terrific! And I love the cover so much.
When her father goes bankrupt, Yeva, her father, and her sisters have to sell off all of their wealth and move back in to the rundown hunting cabin he owned prior to marrying their mother. He is determined to build back up their wealth by tracking and hunting the fantastical creatures of the forest he taught Yeva about in her childhood. Instead on of those beasts ends up killing him instead. Yeva, nicknamed beauty by her father, goes off on a hunt of her own finding much more than she’d bargained for.
As you can guess, this is a fairy-tale retelling of the classic tale of Beauty and the Beast- but with a twist. Meagan Spooner sets her Beauty in Russia and fills her tale with Russian folk tales that embodies this tale with life beyond a Beauty falling in love with her Beast in a broken down castle. In her captivity, Yeva keeps herself sane by telling her captor every story she can remember turning her dark and dank cell into multi-hued world, if just for a moment. As she spends more time with her Beast, she see’s through his outer appearance to see the humanity within him, realizing he may be one of her tales turned to life.
I am not sure why it took me so long to read this book other than I had a ton of fairy-tale re-tellings on my list and even though I’d heard this one was very good, I thought I knew the story of Beauty and the Beast. However, the Russian folk stories gave life to this Beauty and the Beast and I really liked the world Meagan Spooner built for the setting. I liked the Beast’s origin story and the journey Yeva had to take, both internal and external, to save him from becoming a true Beast gave more meat to the romantic musical that Disney made popular.
I read this book as part of my Book Club. I personally really enjoy fairy tale retellings, and I did enjoy this book. This is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast and I loved the familiar feel of it. I also loved that it wasn’t modernized, but still felt like a classic “old timey” fairy tale.
This book had fairy tales within the fairy tale, which made it interesting. I love that the author kept the “Beauty” character as one who loved books, reading and stories. I also liked that the “Beauty” character had family more than her and her dad, like the Disney film version. It added depth to the character and to the story.
The way the curse is broken in this retelling is different and yet the same, and I was pleased with that as well. Basically, if you enjoy fairy tale retellings and especially the tale of Beauty and the Beast, I think you would enjoy this book. I’ve already recommended it to my daughter to read.