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The Beast at the Door
In this steampunk fairy tale, Patience is no proper young lady. Faced with the prospect of marriage, she runs away from home, from wealth, and a looming life of lies. She finds a garden guarded by a fantastic beast. The beast also guards a young girl like herself, alone in the world. Ada is wise and beautiful. Their burgeoning friendship is threatened by outside forces. Only a clockwork menagerie of monsters can save them from an unfriendly world.
208 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 1, 2016
This was an absolutely delightful story and so not what I expected! Not that I’m entirely sure what I expected given I’m not familiar with steampunk. Patience is a wonderful character, a strong young-woman in her own right.
After fleeing her family and impending arranged marriage, Patience stumbles across a possible safe place only to encounter the beast! But what or who is the beast? I can’t say without spoilers, but as per above things are not as they seem.
Ada, an equally engaging character, and the story of the two heroines trying to make the best of what life has doled out to them, kept me on the edge of my seat. When bad men break-in with the intention of killing the beast and taking over the house, the girls have to get inventive to save their hides, their home, and ‘the beast.’
The addition of trips to the market, Mr. Welsh and his creepy son, Calvin, added another layer of depth and mayhem to this story.
The adult content was sensual without being overly explicit, which suited the characters perfectly given it was a sexual awakening for Patience.
The only reason I didn’t rate this five stars is I personally wanted to know the fate of two characters that played vital roles in each of the girls lives before they met, and are referred to throughout the story. The author has talent and I’m sure she could’ve pulled it off. With that said, for a debut novel I can’t complain.
The story is very well written, with a unique plot and characters you’ll be rooting for. I definitely recommend it and will happily read more by this author.
Copy provided in exchange for an honest review
After fleeing her family and impending arranged marriage, Patience stumbles across a possible safe place only to encounter the beast! But what or who is the beast? I can’t say without spoilers, but as per above things are not as they seem.
Ada, an equally engaging character, and the story of the two heroines trying to make the best of what life has doled out to them, kept me on the edge of my seat. When bad men break-in with the intention of killing the beast and taking over the house, the girls have to get inventive to save their hides, their home, and ‘the beast.’
The addition of trips to the market, Mr. Welsh and his creepy son, Calvin, added another layer of depth and mayhem to this story.
The adult content was sensual without being overly explicit, which suited the characters perfectly given it was a sexual awakening for Patience.
The only reason I didn’t rate this five stars is I personally wanted to know the fate of two characters that played vital roles in each of the girls lives before they met, and are referred to throughout the story. The author has talent and I’m sure she could’ve pulled it off. With that said, for a debut novel I can’t complain.
The story is very well written, with a unique plot and characters you’ll be rooting for. I definitely recommend it and will happily read more by this author.
Copy provided in exchange for an honest review
September 18, 2016
Note: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
It takes a lot for me to fall in love with a book. It's only a little bit easier for me to really like one. So I tend to give three stars ("liked it") to most books, encompassing a range of "well, I didn't dislike it" to "it wasn't totally my cup of tea, but I enjoyed venturing into something new." Althea Blue's The Beast at the Door was the latter.
The Beast was a cozy little spin in the trappings of the Victorian era and the essence of a familiar fairy tale. Although labeled steampunk, it's a little more clockwork (if you're a stickler for the differences), gearpunk or springpunk. It lacks the flamboyance and grease of steampunk oddities but embraces quiet rebellion and the spirit of invention.
Comfortable and easy to read, The Beast flows out of the constriction and crowds of high society to the mystery of a haunted (?) house in the countryside, where the focal protagonist, Patience, finds the freedom to explore life and friendship... and love. Alongside her in this adventure is the secretive Ada, whose self-imposed restrictions are quite different from the trappings of class that once held Patience.
In the end, The Beast finds a tidy and satisfying ending befitting its fairy tale status. The story is not without its moments of peril nor completely deprived of "steam," but it doesn't go out of its way to find a dark or "adult" edge to enhance the plot. If you are looking for your own small escape in a book, The Beast has the courtesy to oblige.
It takes a lot for me to fall in love with a book. It's only a little bit easier for me to really like one. So I tend to give three stars ("liked it") to most books, encompassing a range of "well, I didn't dislike it" to "it wasn't totally my cup of tea, but I enjoyed venturing into something new." Althea Blue's The Beast at the Door was the latter.
The Beast was a cozy little spin in the trappings of the Victorian era and the essence of a familiar fairy tale. Although labeled steampunk, it's a little more clockwork (if you're a stickler for the differences), gearpunk or springpunk. It lacks the flamboyance and grease of steampunk oddities but embraces quiet rebellion and the spirit of invention.
Comfortable and easy to read, The Beast flows out of the constriction and crowds of high society to the mystery of a haunted (?) house in the countryside, where the focal protagonist, Patience, finds the freedom to explore life and friendship... and love. Alongside her in this adventure is the secretive Ada, whose self-imposed restrictions are quite different from the trappings of class that once held Patience.
In the end, The Beast finds a tidy and satisfying ending befitting its fairy tale status. The story is not without its moments of peril nor completely deprived of "steam," but it doesn't go out of its way to find a dark or "adult" edge to enhance the plot. If you are looking for your own small escape in a book, The Beast has the courtesy to oblige.
June 22, 2017
Patience is the daughter of a wealthy British family some time in the 1800s. All her life she hasn't conformed to her parents' expectations and after she is forced to become engaged to a hateful man, she runs away from home. Unprepared for the road and in the woods during a horrible storm, she steals into a house occupied by a scary beast who is visible through the front window. There she meets Ada, the other occupant of the house.
This is essentially a fairy tale, with a steampunk-ish bent focused on the inventions of Ada's father, who has left the house and not returned. It's a sweet love story but not much more than that. I liked it but it didn't exactly wow me.
This is essentially a fairy tale, with a steampunk-ish bent focused on the inventions of Ada's father, who has left the house and not returned. It's a sweet love story but not much more than that. I liked it but it didn't exactly wow me.
December 3, 2017
2017 Rainbow Awards Honorable Mention: Beast at the Door Althea Blue
1) A wonderful Steampunk Fairytale. Enough story arcs were tidied up to be satisfying, and a few left over to tease a possible sequel.
1) A wonderful Steampunk Fairytale. Enough story arcs were tidied up to be satisfying, and a few left over to tease a possible sequel.
Read
June 19, 2020This book is kind of high-school feminism in a steampunk format. Patience is appalled when her father demands that she marry up-and-coming banker Gabriel—a young man she not only doesn’t love, but doesn’t respect. But of course a young woman must do as daddy says in 19th century Canterbury, mustn’t she? Well, evidently not, because Patience decides to run away instead. After several days or roaming through the woods, she comes upon a large house whose owner seems to be a vicious creature that looks something like a cross between a wolf and a pig. The sole caretaker of the house is a 19-year-old girl named Ada, who soon becomes Patience’s protector.
But the book is not so much about the monster as it about the friendship of Ada and Patience. How they help each other and come to fall in love. The excitement is limited and predictable with a couple of bad guys and a couple of plans that turn out to work perfectly. The book’s metadata mentions steampunk, lesbian, science fiction, and fantasy, but doesn’t mention romance or young adult, which is odd, because that it what it is—a young adult romance.
Although Ada is at least 19, the author cagily leads us to believe that Patience is only 16, although the wording is not explicit. She possibly does this on purpose because the best part of the book is its single, extended sex scene—probably inappropriate for YA, which describes the loss of innocence of both girls. And the reading level is middle school at best. My suggestion is that if the author does not want it to be viewed as YA she should make her prose more adult and make Patience older. If she does want a YA readership, add that to the description of the book and see if she can get away with the sex scene. And to make the prose a little more adult anyway. As it is, it sounds like Jane Austen at, say, 12 years old.
But the final rating of this book is defined by what is left out. Do Patience’s parents not try to look for her? After all, she couldn’t have traveled far from Canterbury. What happened to Patience’s beloved brother Mason—and to Ada’s beloved inventor father? The book is way too short to have left these things out, unless . . .
Unless the author intends to go on with the series, in which case it deserves an even lower rating. I may be old fashioned, but I want a novel to have a beginning, a middle, and an end—not just the first two. This “go-on-to-the-next-volume” writing philosophy is a bad one. If the reader is not satisfied, there is way less chance that she will go on to the next book in the series. As it is, I can see giving this book somewhere less than 3 stars, but not less than 2.
Note: I read a review copy of this book, which was kindly provided in electronic form by the publisher through Lesbrary.
Another Note: You might want to check out my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, , which has information on over 930 lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.
But the book is not so much about the monster as it about the friendship of Ada and Patience. How they help each other and come to fall in love. The excitement is limited and predictable with a couple of bad guys and a couple of plans that turn out to work perfectly. The book’s metadata mentions steampunk, lesbian, science fiction, and fantasy, but doesn’t mention romance or young adult, which is odd, because that it what it is—a young adult romance.
Although Ada is at least 19, the author cagily leads us to believe that Patience is only 16, although the wording is not explicit. She possibly does this on purpose because the best part of the book is its single, extended sex scene—probably inappropriate for YA, which describes the loss of innocence of both girls. And the reading level is middle school at best. My suggestion is that if the author does not want it to be viewed as YA she should make her prose more adult and make Patience older. If she does want a YA readership, add that to the description of the book and see if she can get away with the sex scene. And to make the prose a little more adult anyway. As it is, it sounds like Jane Austen at, say, 12 years old.
But the final rating of this book is defined by what is left out. Do Patience’s parents not try to look for her? After all, she couldn’t have traveled far from Canterbury. What happened to Patience’s beloved brother Mason—and to Ada’s beloved inventor father? The book is way too short to have left these things out, unless . . .
Unless the author intends to go on with the series, in which case it deserves an even lower rating. I may be old fashioned, but I want a novel to have a beginning, a middle, and an end—not just the first two. This “go-on-to-the-next-volume” writing philosophy is a bad one. If the reader is not satisfied, there is way less chance that she will go on to the next book in the series. As it is, I can see giving this book somewhere less than 3 stars, but not less than 2.
Note: I read a review copy of this book, which was kindly provided in electronic form by the publisher through Lesbrary.
Another Note: You might want to check out my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, , which has information on over 930 lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews