Review: Beauty and the Beast by Hannah Howell

Beauty and the Beast
by Hannah Howell
Publisher: Zebra
Publication date: Dec. 30, 2014
Genre: Historical Romance
Rating:

On the eve of her wedding to the heir of Saiturn Manor, the stunningly beautiful Gytha is shocked to learn that her betrothed, a man she barely knew, is dead. Now she must marry the new heir, Thayer Saiturn, a battle-hardened knight known as the Red Devil. . .

With a face scarred in battle and a heart broken in love, Thayer has no interest in marriage. But not even the Red Devil can break the promise his foster-father made years ago and soon finds himself married to a woman whose exquisite beauty and sweet innocence intrigue him. But can his new bride look beyond his scars to find a hidden passion and undying love locked deep inside him?

I was really excited to read this story, but it didn’t really work for me. It started off so well when Gytha was married off to Thayer, a warrior. He wasn’t planning on getting married on the day of his cousin’s wedding, but since the marriage contract was to the heir of Saitum Manor and Thayer wasn’t dead like all had thought, he ends up being the groom instead. I figured this would be a fun story between a lady and a war hardened knight, however, that wasn’t actually the case.

Thayer wasn’t a beast at all. He wasn’t overly gruff, but in fact understanding and very forgiving of how his wife behaved and spoke to him. He wasn’t handsome by normal standards, but I guess his red hair and large warrior size was the “beast” part. I just didn’t understand the comparison between the two in the book. Gytha was the classic beauty, however, she was insanely annoying, naive, and a bit dense at times. She put herself into danger more times than I could count.

While the characters had their faults, I think the biggest hurdle I faced while reading this was the pace of the story and how half of it was dragged out. I found myself skimming a lot of the book just to get past all the boring chitchat or inner dialog and back to the story. The author made an attempt to add twist and turns in the story to keep the readers interested, but they were so crazy and outlandish that at times I felt like I was reading a soap opera or extreme proportions. It just felt like they were throwing out things to shock the readers instead of things that needed to be there.

All in all, I was not a fan of this book. I felt that it dragged on, I did not become attached to any of the characters, and in all honesty, I was just bored while reading it.