'Once upon a time a beautiful girl fell in love with a beast...' It is a tale as old as time but what if all you thought you knew about Beauty and her Beast is wrong? In this novel, Beauty comes out of the shadows to set the record straight, beginning with her first glimpse of the vampire that would change her life and moving on through the ages of love, loss, and immortality. From eighteenth century France to modern day New Orleans, a tale is woven that will make you question your perception of what it means to live, what it means to love forever, and what it means to look the beast in the eyes and know only passion. Do you believe in magick? Can you imagine the shades of gray in things that appear black or white? Then prepare yourself for the greatest love story never told. This is not your child's fairytale. This is the real story of Beauty and her Beast.
I LOVE/HATED this book. Beauty & the Beast is my absolute favorite story of all time. change it to a vampire tale?? HECK YES!! I fell in love with the characters after the 1st few pages and loved them until the last. the authors elaborate story flowed well and her attention to details was over the moon. Beauty and the Beast is my very most favorite Disney movie and I just realized I have NEVER read the story. this was not the traditional story nor was it a traditional vampire story. I liked it, I more than liked it but the length & enormous amount of detail made me not love it. I can not even fathom the amount of research the author put into this book. It was part love story part history lesson. The vampires are bloody and do not sparkle.
I just had to read this book because Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorite stories. I wanted to know what this one would tell. I wouldn't have imagined a story like this. After some time I stoped comparing it with the stories about Beauty and the Beast I've read and enjoyed it as pretty unique and interesting story.
The quote in the beginning of the book sounded mysterious, magical and powerful. It enchanted me and intrigued me to read further and to know what the story would bring.
I started to like the main character Arianne as soon as the beginning of the first chapter. I was interested in her life and her feelings. I wanted to know more of her story and to see how everything goes for her. I was afraid with her to know the secrets she found. I was worried about her and I cared for her. I felt her sadness and sorrow, her longing and pain. Her feelings seemed so real and vivid for me. I kept thinking about them whenever I put the book aside.
I was engrossed in the story pretty soon. I couldn't stop reading. When I had to put it down, I founded myself thinking about the events what happened and wondering what would happen next, how would go story of Arianne and Luke, what would happen to them. I wanted to know more. I wanted to know the answers. I easily got lost in that story and forgot time passing by or tasks I needed to do.
Each part of the story kept intriguing me. There were a lot of different events, and when ones ended, others came. It was kind of never ending story. Something was revealed and something was still kept a secret. I believed there were bigger secrets and I wondered what are they. There were hints here and there of bigger events, of some danger coming. I feared something bad and horrible would happen. I was worried about Arianne, about her future and what it would bring, would there be happiness, or would there be sadness. I wondered how much she can endure. And after each event, each part of the story I was eager for more.
I enjoyed this story. Some parts were very beautiful, it could bring tears in me. Some parts made me smile. And some parts had darkness. Some things in this story reminded me of Twilight saga, and yet it was different a lot, giving unique story, characters, their lifes and their choices.
There were many characters introduced in here. I was interested to hear their stories and I wanted to know more about them. There were also bits of history in the story. I liked to read about it, to see how it is shown in here. That made me view things I knew a bit differently.
It was amazing tale about love, about how much it can take. It brought questions about relationships, about the way to be in them and problems that might occur. I doubt I have ever considered how much obstacles and hard times can there be for the ones who love one another. I wondered while reading, would Arianne go trough this hard time, would I, if I was in her place.
It was told also about finding your way after you have lost ones dear for you, about creating a new life from that point. And it was told about learning, changing and growing to be a different person than you used to be. That's painful and there are loses on the way, but that's how the life is. I liked to read about that.
I was fascinated with this story. It reminds me life. When there are obstacles and hard times, it seems very big, important and overwhelming, yet further you go, bigger the obstacles and hard times become, and ones you have already endured starts to seem not that big at all.
There's one thing I want to say. That's not about the story, just about one fact in it. There was mentioned in the story Lithuania and Slavic peasant people in there. That left me a bit confused. I'm Lithuanian myself and I want to say Lithuanians aren't Slavic, but the Baltic ethnic group, native to Lithuania. Maybe that's not that important, often people from various countries and of various nationalities live in foreign countries and get assimilated, so there are some Slavic people living here in Lithuania. But I still wanted to mention this thing.
All in all it was beautiful and wonderful story for me. And it was huge. I think there are still a lot of interesting events and stories to hear in the future.
I received this book in exchange for an honest review (Lovers of Paranormal).
At first the story was interesting and especially the mystery surrounding Lucania. I loved and hated this book. There was a point in Arianna's situation that made me want to DNF it but luckily I forced myself to continue reading it.
This is no ordinary retelling of Beauty and the Beast. There is so much more going on especially between H/h not to mention the other characters in the story.
I don't want to spoil much but I need to mention the of Arianna. I already had a feeling about Charlotte but I never knew it would go way back when Lucania revealed something about it.
I also cried at some parts especially the people who were close to Arianna. Me, just thinking about it right now is making me teary. I especially cried during chance that Arianna was given to say goodbye. Still can't get over it... seriously...
There's also the other "disney-like-princess" versions which I'm looking forward to read. They all need their HEA especially that couple (and I mean .
Can't wait to read more!
I received this book in exchange for an honest review (LoP or Lovers of Paranormal)
Beauty and the Beast ( The Vampire Fairy Tales #1 ) by Keair Snyder I received this book from the Author in exchange for an honest review through the “Lovers of Paranormal” Group on Goodreads.com
Although this book is much longer that I expected it to be, I found it to be a very enjoyable read. The story is told by the main protagonist Arianna. She escapes her small village existence after the death of her father and finds herself in a large Manor with a family of Vampires. She falls hopelessly in love with Lucania, and the others. Luke also is very much attracted to Arianna, but loves her enough to want her to live a full life as a human. The writing is very detailed, but flows well. The characters are very believable. The sex scenes are very subtle, which is very refreshing for a Vampire book. All in all, a richly woven, beautifully written retelling of the classic ‘Beauty and the Beast’ tale. I can’t wait for the next book in the series to come out as this book ended so abruptly with so many unanswered questions.
I received this in exchange for an honest review from LOP.
I really enjoyed this book. I don't usually go for anything historical but I just had to read this book. The way that Snyder creates scene after scene in such a beautiful and poetic way was mesmerizing.
It was a really long book and despite not being able to read more every day, I would pick up the book and be instantly transported into this world.
I grew to love Mother even though I was unsure of her at the start. Lucania annoyed me throughout the book although I did love him for sending Arianna out to experience the world without him even though it hurt them both. At times (when they were together) I didn't feel their love, Arianna seemed more obsessed and Lucania seemed more aloof.
However, it was a great read and showed that there is life beyond the man you love and that while life can kick you in the teeth, there is always a silver lining.
I received this for my honest review thru Lovers of paranormal. Let me start by saying Beauty and the Beast is my most favorite Disney story! I love everything about it! So to change it and throw in Vampires its like hell yeah I want to read that. The author did a wonderful job. The story flows and has great depth in the plot. She knows how to keep you hooked and I fell in love with the characters. A lot of research had to go into this story. I LOVED it!!! It was a awesome story Keair Snyder you Rock I cant wait to read more books from you so I hope your working on something! Thank you again for letting me read and review your book :)
This book was an interesting concept. I honestly had never thought about Beauty and the Beast being a vampire book. I think I absolutely loved every character that she wrote about. I love the mystery of him. Although half of it I was very frustrated with when he sent her away even though he loved her and she loved him.I was cursing and shaking my fist at him just the same as she was. I loved that she could soften him when he was angry. And I loved the other characters especially the cook. Mother was really great too. I would recommend this book for roughly about anyone. It's a long read so somebody has to be able to read long detailed books but it was smooth and it was great.happy reading!
I enjoyed this book. I found that there were parts I loved and parts I could skip over. I liled how she incorporated people from history into the characters lives and made it all seem more real. I'm not sure if this is going to be a series but I hope so as there are many characters I look forward to getting to know better.
This is an epic story that melds together Grimm’s fairy tales with vampires, Greek gods, Egyptian gods, and Christian/Jewish mythology along with reincarnation and souls finding souls.
It reads much like a journal and as such is extremely gripping though often tediously detailed. For the first fourth of the book I was absolutely convinced that the author was a pseudonym for an actual vampire who had written this story! It wasn’t until it began hitting the fairy tale portion and interwoven families of vampires that I began to see this as simply a brilliant work of fiction.
The overall story is extremely intriguing, though the formatting needs a lot of help. Most of the story is told through quotes, which is a difficult thing to format, but with an editor, the author could possibly get this book into the main stream. Fans of Interview with a Vampire would adore this book. Fans of Anne Rice would adore this book.
Please, dear Keair Snyder, get someone to help you format this book and release the update version. Your story is genius, it just needs help in its presentation.
It took me over a year to complete this book and even then I ended up skimming the last half. The physical book is HUGE. Like, textbook size, and it is simply difficult to read, and I wasn’t able to really commit to reading it until I got it on Kindle Unlimited.
What really made this book a challenge for me, however, was how it grouped the Bible, a book that I believe to be true and what I try to live my life by, along with fairytales, mythology, vampire lore as just another made up story influenced by a vampire.
I received this book in exchange for an honest review (LoP or Lovers of Paranormal).
I absolutely love Beauty and the Beast stories - retellings and inspired ones. I read this book thinking it would be a typical re-telling with the beast being a vampire. I was just trying to figure out how 700+ pages of this was going to work. My assumption was that it was going to be the typical girl wanders onto beast's property, the two MC fight, make up, see the truth, its ok since true love, she turns into vamp and voilà happy ending. NOPE.
Keair Snyder went way beyond the story/setting of Beauty and the Beast. She made the story her own and it's definitely not a story where I went "Oh it's just like/similar to [Author's] book." It was very refreshing to read a fairytale retelling that went way beyond the original and she spun it so it became her own.
Recommendation: If you like/don't mind: - the length - first person perspective (all in the heroine's point of view) - vampires - lots of angst - historical I say YES! Go for it because I'm definitely going to go buy the next books from this series.
What I liked: - The relationship between Arianna and Lucania. I love how it wasn't a perfect relationship, they weren't always totally happy and completely in love. They had problems and they had to deal with it.
- The vampires, mythology and fairytales. I really liked that the author didn't deviate far from the traditional vampire (sunlight = death, pale/deathly/corpsy looks but beautiful, some supernatural powers). What made me love the book even more was
- The pace. Even though the book was long (I usually don't read books that are as long as this one) I didn't feel like it dragged or went too slowly. The author had A LOT of interior monologue and angst in the book that I didn't mind that the story went on for so long. NEW What made the pacing good for me was the divisions. Since this book is long she divided the book with Book 1, 2, and 3 with its own heading, so it felt like 3 books in one and
- The sex. If you wanted some detailed erotic love making, this book will disappoint you. I loved that the story focused on the events and the relationships (between the MCs and with other people). Some books focused too much on "now that we have each other let's bang every other page". The sex scenes was basically very low key? subtle? I'm not sure how to say it but it was only a sentence or paragraph and it didn't linger on it. It could have effected how I viewed them as a couple but that was only because I'm so used to reading romance and I had that expectation of "writing lots of love making = shows loving relationship".
What I didn't liked:
- The relationship between Arianna and Lucania. (seriously don't read the spoilers because I'm going to write some BIG spoiler stuff)
- The interior dialogue. As I read the story, I read it as though the woman was doing a sort of autobiography, looking back and remembering her life as she's telling it to someone (which worked and I liked it). I think there were some inconsistencies of switching the interior dialogue - from the woman speaking about the past to the woman living the in the present going through the angst.
- The dialogue and POV. I got a little confused at times in the beginning as to who she was referring to and who was the "I" (At first I thought it was first person but switched POVs). For me, the dialogue at times sounded too modern to be written as the 10th century French girl, ancient vampire etc.
- Storytelling. I know it's a series but I felt that even with this length the ending came too abruptly. The story did linger too much on little things or problems that are there just to be problems. Their relationship is still in the working I guess?
I received a copy of Beauty and the Beast by Keair Snyder through the Lovers of Paranormal Group here on Goodreads in exchange for an honest review.
Though a bit long, the story is woven so enchantingly, you only seem to notice its length when anticipating what will happen next. The scenarios are explained vividly, so as to form a complete picture in your imagination, and the characters are unique and intriguing. The story is told in first person by the main female character, a human girl, and the beast of the story, is a very ancient vampire. The tale sticks somewhat closely to the original Beauty and the Beast plot but varies in such things as the servants in the castle being other vampires living as a family. I thoroughly enjoyed this version and am looking forward to reading more from this author.
I received this book in exchange for an honest review from the LOP group. This is not Disney's version of Beauty and the Beast but, it was just as wonderful. I immersed my self into this story as it was full of mystery and a twisted plot that completely won me over. Arianna is the beauty in the story. She finds herself outside of the home of Lucania (the beast) she is frightened but is bound to not let her fear stand in her way. I was elated to watch this story play out in my mind. The interaction between Arianna and Lucania was infuriating and amazing all at the same time. Beauty and the Beast retold by Keair Snyder was everything I hoped it would be and so very much more. The story was beautiful and painful it packed a punch and left me wanting more. I plead with Keair Snyder to give me more of these amazing tales as I will promise to continue reading them.
I received this book in exchange for an honest review (LoP or Lovers of Paranormal)
First of all, this book is about a beast, a VAMPIRE and I freaking love VAMPIRE books!
2nd, the effort thrown to write this book is so tremendous and I freaking love all the detailed scene described in this book.
After her father passed away, Arianna took off to look for new life which she'd always dreamed of. Walking without destination, she arrive in front of a big mansion and passed off. The residents of the mansion taken her in and let her stay there.
She met the mansion owner, Lucania, who is very mysterious yet she can help to feel attracted to him.
This is one hell of Beauty & the Beast retelling in new perspective, I LOVE IT.
p/s: I re-read this 3 times while I'm in hospital. LOL
I received this book from the Author in exchange for an honest review. I have mixed feelings about this book the story line was good but i didnt really like the characters. Beauty and the Beast is an all time favorite of mine so I was disappointed some but i did like it over all and i would recommend it to those interested into this type of stuff. It was an interesting read.