“Waiting On” Wednesday: Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

 

 

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights eagerly anticipated upcoming releases.

 

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

Release Date: January 28, 2014

From Goodreads:

Graceling meets Beauty and the Beast in this sweeping fantasy about one girl’s journey to fulfill her destiny and the monster who gets in her way-by stealing her heart.

Based on the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Cruel Beauty is a dazzling love story about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny.

Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.

With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she’s ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.

But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle-a shifting maze of magical rooms-enthralls her.

As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex’s secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.

 

Why am I waiting?

I love retellings. And I’m particularly enchanted with what the summary presents to me about this retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I’m already loving the obvious dynamics between the characters but I’m also looking forward to discovering the other layers of their relationship, beyond the ‘Beauty’ and the ‘Beast’ ideals. The blurb doesn’t say much about our ‘Beast’ Ignifex but I’m looking forward to learning more about him.

 

And just as I’ve gushed over this book’s cover in another post, I’ll gush over it again here. Don’t you just adore that cover? I’m getting the dark fairy tale-esque feeling just by looking at it.

 

What about you? What are you “waiting on” this Wednesday?