Review: In Bed with the Beast by Tara Sivec

In Bed with the Beast
(Naughty Princess Club #2)
by Tara Sivec
Publisher: Swerve
Publication date: June 5, 2018
Genre: romance
Rating:

A tale as old as time: she needs a place to stay, he’s a grump with a secret and an extra room…can love find a way?

Meet the Naughty Princess Club, a series from USA Today bestselling author Tara Sivec that brings readers to Fairytale Lane and the hilarity—and romance—that three women fall into once they decide to strut their stuff and bring on their own happily ever after.

Living in her overprotective dad’s basement, shy Belle lives her life through books. Being a part of the Naughty Princess Club is the first adventure she’s ever had, plus she desperately needs the money to save one of her favorite places – the local library.

But when her new friends and new business gets her kicked out of her dad’s house, Belle is rescued by the surly Vincent “Beast” Adams who invites her to be his house guest until she gets back on her feet. Despite his attitude problem and long list of rules, Belle finds herself warming to the muscled man with a penchant for growling and starts seeing a gentle side to him that wasn’t there before.

Yet there’s a room that Beast keeps locked and Belle keeps getting hints that Beast is hiding something…can a nerdy librarian tame the beast or will their romance be over before it has a chance to blossom?

When Belle is kicked out of her father’s house she decides to crash at the local library that she runs. Suddenly, Beast, the security guard from Charming’s Gentleman’s club, randomly starts showing up at the library before closing. It isn’t until a week later that he demands she grab her stuff and stay with him, that she realizes that he’s been showing up at the library to make sure she’s safe. He found out that she was crashing at the library and in order to make sure she was safe, he would pop into her work before closing and make sure she was good for the night. However, he’s had enough of her sleeping on the floor and insists she stay with him until she can get on her feet. Which seems like the perfect opportunity for Belle to finally get some experience being around the opposite sex. After all, if she’s going to take he clothes off for a bunch of horny men, she should learn to not be an awkward encyclopedia around them.

Another stellar Naughty Princess Club story! Seriously, I don’t know if I’ve ever enjoyed a princess retelling so much before. The guys in them are not perfect, but man are they swoon-worthy. The ladies have got a lot going on in their life with a lot of mental roadblocks to overcome. Not to mention the hilarity of it all. It’s the perfect recipe for an amazing story that will have you glued to the pages until the very last word. Heck, I was cheesing like a loon at the ending of this book. Seriously, this story was amazing.

“YOLO, bitches! If I had a wad of singles I’d be making it rain!”

While this is a retelling, it’s not verbatim to the story we all know. And yet, the author adds in so many similarities that are modernized to today that still gives you the feel of the classic Beauty and the Beast story. Obviously, Belle lives at home with her father, loves books, has a wealth of knowledge, looks past the growly Beast to the man inside, and ends up living with the Beast and falling in love. She goes on a couple of blind dates with a vain Gus Tone, and Steven Luminous who is looking for another lady in his life. There was even a cute scene where she teaches him to cook because he is absolutely horrible at it. Reminded me in the scene when Beast tries to do mundane things and is just too intense with the task. Well, Vincent (aka Beast) is the same way when trying to cook. There’s food every where, he’s passionate about trying something new with her, but he’s just too big and clumsy to have the certain finesse that it takes to make a meal… without making a mess. Not to mention the the fact of Vincent being horribly protective of Belle and only wanting her to be happy. Oh, and there’s even a scene with pitchforks and torches as they storm “the Beast’s” castle. Granted, that’s not how it goes down, but that’s what Belle’s father tells her on the phone before she hurries to Vincent’s house ready to do damage control. Like I said, there were similarities that ran parallel to the story while still making it fresh and new, and giving it a modern twist.

I loved that we also got to see Belle blossom into a confident woman. When we first meet her, she’s this mousy bookworm who lives in her father’s basement. She sneaks in and out through the window so that her father doesn’t know she left the house. However, over the course of the story we watch her grow into this take-charge woman. She’s tired of people telling her that she’s not ready to strip, that she needs more experience around men in order to pull it off. She’s ready to take back her life and save her beloved library. Watching her slow transition to this confident person was probably one of the best parts of the whole story. However, watching he fumble through her transition was pretty hilarious, too. I mean, when someone tells you to dance sexy for them, this girl pulls out the Macarena! You guys, I can’t even. I was right there with Vincent like, “Uh… What are you doing?!” 😀

In Bed with the Beast is an all around amazing story. I honestly can not seem to praise this series enough. Cindy was a bit uptight and took me a while to get behind, but I really loved Belle’s story. Maybe because she had a long way to go to be confident in her own skin. Maybe because everyone around her seemed to underestimate her, and I can’t help but root for the underdog. I honestly don’t know what appealed to me with this story because BatB is not high up there on my favorites list of princess stories. However, I loved this story so much!

Favorite quote…

“Who cares about happily-ever-after? I’ve got happy-for-right-now, and that’s good enough for me.”

Previous reviews from the Naughty Princess Club
At the Stroke of Midnight