The story starts off with Beast in the woods living as an animal would until he's led back to his home and the iron gates lock behind him. Slowly he starts to remember thing and the magic slowly starts to repair the house and gardens. Beast is there so long he loses track of time the enchantment keeping the grounds in an eternal summer. Beast relearns how to dress and act like a man. The details of his curse still remain foggy in his mind all he knows is that a fairy cursed him to be the beast he is inside.

Isabeau comes along quite like she always does, to save her father after he tries to steal a single rose from Beast's gardens after everything else was given freely. In this we see Beast's side of it, when he allowed her father in he was longing for company but changed his mind at the last moment, but he saw into her father's dream a had vision of his youngest daughter. Beast manipulated the situation to bring her to his home; as soon as he did it he felt bad and after she got there he admitted what he did and told her she was free to leave but he was so lonely. So they struck up a deal she stays for a year and keeps Beast company and she will be free to leave after that. Everything else plays out Isabeau has her dreams she keeps to herself but the Beast when he's not with Isabeau is watching her family through his mirror, first out of guilt for what he took from them but then he started to care about them.

Overall, the slow and steady narration of the Beast is wonderful. I loved this version of the original story and I love how she didn't just end it after the curse was broken. Another thing I liked was how Beast didn't know until almost half the year was over that there was a way to break the curse, the details and the why of the curse slowly get revealed to him as he remembers more about his life before the curse. I loved the small details the descriptive narrative was spellbinding, I didn't want to put this book down.

 

A retelling of Sleeping Beauty. Rose and Fish were always my favorite characters so it came to no surprise when their book was my favorite of the series. It is brilliantly done but there is some more underlying mature themes. Abuse playing the biggest part. Recommended for 14+.

Fan Mix

1. Losing Your Memory (Ryan Star) - Fish's POVRose
2 Be Still (The Fray) - Fish's POVRose

Self centered, gorgeous, and manipulative Catriona has goals and lofty ones at that. She is determined she is going to marry the King and does everything in her power to make that happen. She was a very hard character to like, even right up until the end of the novella I had a hard time liking her.

Because of her character flaws, and the fact that she pissed off the King's wizard - she is turned into a cat. To rid himself of the pest, Cat is tossed into the river to drown. She manages to swim to safety and stumbles on Julian, the youngest of the miller's sons. Unhappy with his situation in life, he decides to help Cat in her plans for revenge.

There were good points and bad points to this story. Without giving too much away - it was a fun story, I love fairy tales; and re-tellings of them, so good point. I didn't like Cat until the very very end of the story - could be a good or bad point. I felt for Julian, he was a nice guy - good point. I didn't like the situation with Cat's step-daughter and the wizard, I felt for her.

All in all, it wasn't a bad short story. I'm intrigued by this author's writing and I will probably pick up another book by her to see if I'm still as intrigued. This will appeal to those who like fairy tale re-tellings.

I originally read this for the 2011 TBR Challenge, and it ended up being a real treasure. It's a delightful retelling of the Puss in Boots tale, with plenty of twists thrown in by the author. Here's the review I wrote for AAR:For this month’s TBR Challenge read, I decided to hit the virtual TBR pile. It’s not as large as the dead tree one, but it still exists. I’m glad I decided to pick something from the Kindle because Bettie Sharpe’s novella Cat's Tale ended up being wonderful. This inspired retelling of Puss in Boots is definitely a Desert Island Keeper read for me. The story, told in first person, takes us inside the head of the beautiful and very spoiled Catriona. In the beginning, the scheming, devious Catriona uses her looks as well as a few tricks to catch the eye of the widowed king. This marriage takes her from rural obscurity to a very pampered existence at the palace – until the king dies. At that point, Catriona tries to protect her position by getting mixed up in palace intrigue and after crossing the wizard Galfridus, she finds herself turned into a cat and tossed into a millpond to drown.Fortunately, Cat survives her swim but remains trapped in cat form. She recruits the miller’s youngest son to help her in her quest for revenge and to regain her rightful place. To those who have read the original Puss in Boots, it would not surprise anyone to learn that the grand plan involves the promise of wealth, a title, and the hand of a princess. Cat, of course, does not tell him about her own agenda, but the miller’s son Julian is in a rather deperate position himself and he goes along with her plan. Given that Cat believes, “every grand plan begins with the right pair of shoes,” she manages to convince Julian to outfit her with a little cat-sized pair of boots. And so it is that a boot-wearing cat and a miller’s third son set off on a grand adventure. This is a partial review, and you can find the full text at All About Romance: http://www.likesbooks.com/cgi-bin/bookReview.pl?BookReviewId=8541

I almost never read novellas, because well, I like my books to be longer. I invest in getting to know these characters and connecting with them and I like staying with them for a while. This was a really quick read, I think it took me about 3 hours.

For a fairytale, this contained a lot of sex and lusty men and women. And I hadn't exactly expected this, so I neede a little mental adjustment, but after that it was alright, though I'd have liked it if the sex was a little less graphic.

Apart from this, the story was pretty nice. I liked that Cat knew exactly who she was and what she wanted and made no excuses for her behaviour. I really liked Julian and the way he cared for Cat when she was a cat. He's a loyal friend and wanted to do the honorable thing. I also liked Cat's stepdaughter, the princess, she was snarky!

This was an entertaining read without much depth to it, Cat as a cat was really amusing and I enjoyed the interaction between her and Julian.

My rating: 3 stars