Alison McBain - The Rose Queen
from True North Stories
The Rose Queen was a fantasy finalist for 2019 IAN Book of the Year, and also a finalist for the 2019 Literary Classics Book Award. In addition, it was named as one of the best books of 2018 by the reviewer website Bookshine and Readbows. What makes it so intriguing? Perhaps it's because the Beast doesn't always wait for Beauty. Sometimes, Beauty IS the Beast. Princess Mirabella is betrothed to a repulsive old man a year after her mother's death. She refuses the marriage, only to find out her betrothed is a sorcerer as well. He takes his revenge by transforming her into a savage and frightening beast, giving her an ultimatum: she has three years to solve the mystery of her curse—or die. Exiled to her mother's estate to hide the scandal, Mirabella learns that the sorcerer was not alone in keeping secrets. Her grandfather was murdered before Mirabella was born, and her mother's death is looking less and less as if it came from natural causes. The only point in common to all their ruined lives: her father, the king. Faced with a conflict between saving her family and saving her own life, the choices Mirabella makes will change the future of the kingdom—and magic—forever.
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