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The Servants and the Beast: In Which the Ones Who Saw It All Tell the True Tale of the Beast
You think you know the story - prince gets cursed, girl meets Beast, they fall in love and live happily ever after. If only it was that simple. But dating is tough even in the best of circumstances.
Ever since the fateful day when we let that horrible Good Fairy into the castle, our lives have been on hold. When she turned our bad-tempered prince into a Beast, she lumped us, his loyal servants, into the curse, too, just because she assumed his rude behavior was our fault. Theodore the butler should never have let her inside, and the rest of us should have helped bar the door.
Now, Theodore is an armchair, and we're all trying to carry on our duties as a piano, a coat rack, a bookcase, and the like. At least we have Robert to clean up the pink sparkles piling in the corners from the Good Fairy's curse, since he’s a mop now. We know we just need the Beast to fall in love to break the spell. We're all doing whatever we can to help him find true love, one visitor at a time, hoping the right person finally comes along - but will the Beast ever learn to love?
Ever since the fateful day when we let that horrible Good Fairy into the castle, our lives have been on hold. When she turned our bad-tempered prince into a Beast, she lumped us, his loyal servants, into the curse, too, just because she assumed his rude behavior was our fault. Theodore the butler should never have let her inside, and the rest of us should have helped bar the door.
Now, Theodore is an armchair, and we're all trying to carry on our duties as a piano, a coat rack, a bookcase, and the like. At least we have Robert to clean up the pink sparkles piling in the corners from the Good Fairy's curse, since he’s a mop now. We know we just need the Beast to fall in love to break the spell. We're all doing whatever we can to help him find true love, one visitor at a time, hoping the right person finally comes along - but will the Beast ever learn to love?
Audible Audio
Published December 23, 2019
3 people are currently reading
11 people want to read
About the author
Karen Blakely
5 booksKaren - KD - Blakely believes life is better when you’re owned by a cat. And that you should never leave home without a book.
After reading Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time in fourth grade, Karen knew she wanted to be a writer. Though she refuses to show her early efforts, after joining a fantastic writers group and participating in conferences and retreats, she is thrilled to have achieved that goal.
Her current middle grade/YA fantasy series, The Chimera Chronicles, plunges five friends into a realm of magic and monsters, separated from our world by a secret doorway that few can enter. What begins as an innocent exploration of a strange and fascinating land becomes a dangerous quest for answers.
Available in June 2019, Karen joined four other writer friends for a retelling of Beauty and the Beast — with a twist.
In late 2019, Audrey Murphy — a story of ghosts, greed and redemption — will be available, followed by the first book in the Dark Seighly paranormal romance series — focused around a hidden town guarding a monstrous gateway for more than 800 years.
Find her at www.Kat-Tales.net and Stonehenge Circle Writers (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram).
After reading Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time in fourth grade, Karen knew she wanted to be a writer. Though she refuses to show her early efforts, after joining a fantastic writers group and participating in conferences and retreats, she is thrilled to have achieved that goal.
Her current middle grade/YA fantasy series, The Chimera Chronicles, plunges five friends into a realm of magic and monsters, separated from our world by a secret doorway that few can enter. What begins as an innocent exploration of a strange and fascinating land becomes a dangerous quest for answers.
Available in June 2019, Karen joined four other writer friends for a retelling of Beauty and the Beast — with a twist.
In late 2019, Audrey Murphy — a story of ghosts, greed and redemption — will be available, followed by the first book in the Dark Seighly paranormal romance series — focused around a hidden town guarding a monstrous gateway for more than 800 years.
Find her at www.Kat-Tales.net and Stonehenge Circle Writers (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram).
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
Currently reading
September 17, 2019Excited to announce that the ebook will be on sale for only $0.99 on Sunday, 9-22-19, only on Amazon. Don't miss your chance to snag this deal. The authors will also be hosting a fabulous Facebook event from 1-3pm PST to celebrate. So join us to win some prizes and ask the authors any burning questions about the book, how we all worked together to get it done, or anything else! Can't wait to see you there!
July 1, 2019
A light, enjoyable romp through a well-worn fairy tale, with enough new wrinkles to keep things interesting. I felt that the novella's length and shifting perspectives was a bit of a detriment, being that it largely kept us away from the Beast's emotional transformation. Also, some chapters were not as well written as others, that being the nature of a collaborative project. However, I still had a lot of fun with this book. Especially when it came to its sweet, romantic ending, taking the well-known story into a welcomingly different direction. Though you could argue that the broad strokes of the story aren't too different from the one we know, there is something to be said for comforting familiarity. It won't change the world, but that's okay. Sometimes you just need something sweet.
August 28, 2019
What a delightful book! Thoroughly enjoyed the unique perspectives written by different authors and how the stories were interwoven. A fun twist on a familiar story. Well done!
October 13, 2020
A fun retelling of Beauty and the Beast, but it took a while for me to get into it. As a history buff, I never really got the sense that this story was taking place in medieval or 1800s or whenever France. I felt like it was in the Disney cartoon version of the world instead, which once I got that into my head wasn't too bad. It would have been nice to see more of how the servants interactions with each other and with the Beast change over time. As it is, the Beast's character development seems to happen mostly off screen, and we are only shown the results.
That all being said, this is still a fun little story. The ending is super sweet and also quite action packed. And it's interesting seeing the struggles and concerns of people turned into furniture. This story should be quite entertaining to anyone who likes strange fairy tale retellings or fans of the Beauty and the Beast story. Also
One minor technical thing, my kindle couldn't display the image files for the section breaks or the photos in the 'more books by these authors' page. I can't tell if that's just a problem on my end, or if it is something that was missed during formatting and publication.
That all being said, this is still a fun little story. The ending is super sweet and also quite action packed. And it's interesting seeing the struggles and concerns of people turned into furniture. This story should be quite entertaining to anyone who likes strange fairy tale retellings or fans of the Beauty and the Beast story. Also
One minor technical thing, my kindle couldn't display the image files for the section breaks or the photos in the 'more books by these authors' page. I can't tell if that's just a problem on my end, or if it is something that was missed during formatting and publication.
July 24, 2022
This was super fun. I love fairy tale retellings with a twist. I took away one star because a format change would have helped a lot -- when the narrator changes to another character, I wish each chapter heading had reflected that.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews