keira anne with an e

Roan’s life is simple and quiet– he spends his days running a tavern, keeps the company of his pet dog Beastie, and no one else. Not even his sweet-natured barmaid.

Until a strange curse overtakes his tavern, and he finds himself living in two worlds– joined only by Abigail, who has secrets of her own.

In this forced proximity retelling mash-up of Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast, two people joined together by a mysterious curse just may discover they were meant to be together all along.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5 stars)

Thank you to the author for providing me with an advanced e-copy of this book. All thoughts expressed are my own, and I was not required to leave a positive review.

This was easily one of my most anticipated reads of the year. This entire series of “displaced fairytales” is absolutely fascinating to me, but this one was by far the most intriguing premise to me. The idea of mixing elements of Beauty and the Beast with elements of Sleeping Beauty was super intriguing to me, and this story did not disappoint (though I will say that I definitely picked up on more Beauty and the Beast vibes.

I had the great honor of reading an advanced copy of this author’s previous release, Once Upon a Cat, in which we were introduced to our main characters from this book. I definitely felt I had missed their story, and that obviously made me even more excited to dive into this story. I had to see Abigail and Roan’s relationship and story for myself– and it was unashamedly adorable.

Our main guy really embraced his grumpy protective energy, which I thought was really fun, especially since the male leads in the other Galamere books aren’t really that same grumpy type, so it was fun to see Gabrielle Landi reach out and write a different sort of character. (Don’t get me wrong, the other books’ characters still stole my heart and definitely top the list, but still, Roan was a nice leading character.)

Having Abigail definitely embrace more of the Aurora role of eternal optimism and sweetness was an interesting choice– I would have preferred to see a bit more of the Belle-esque spunk, because that’s really what I like the most in Beauty and the Beast retellings, but it was fun to see an original take on it.

Beastie was– of course– adorable, and I really enjoyed those aspects of the story. I was confused by the fantasy/curse elements, but so were our main characters, so that made me feel a little better. I was happy with the way that everything tied up– and obviously the connection to Nathaniel and Thea. #galamereforever

Content wise, this one was a very clean YA fantasy retelling. There was some tension between our main characters– especially when she walked in on him shirtless, but nothing over the top or too involved, if that makes any sense. There were also curses/spells and mentions of dark magic and sorcery, but nothing written out or crossing any personal lines for me.

I believe this book is going to be on Kindle Unlimited, so if this premise sounds intriguing to you, I would definitely recommend checking it out. I personally really enjoyed it– I know, I know, I say that about all of Gabrielle Landi’s books, but it’s also true! So, yes, please consider giving this one a try. I definitely enjoyed it, and I do think I will be continuing on with other books in this multi-author series.

EMOJI REVIEW!

• 😴 sleeping beauty + 🥀 beauty and the beast retelling
• 🏚️ fixing up a tavern
• 🤝 forced proximity
• 🐶 cute dog character
• 🧙 magic/curses

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this review! I hope that you enjoyed it. I would love to hear which two fairytales you would mash up if you were combining them for a retelling? Let’s chat in the comments below.