Hunted By Meagan Spooner

Genre : Young Adult , Fantasy

Theme : Retelling of Beauty and the Beast

Beauty knows the Beast’s forest in her bones—and in her blood. Though she grew up with the city’s highest aristocrats, far from her father’s old lodge, she knows that the forest holds secrets and that her father is the only hunter who’s ever come close to discovering them.

So when her father loses his fortune and moves Yeva and her sisters back to the outskirts of town, Yeva is secretly relieved. Out in the wilderness, there’s no pressure to make idle chatter with vapid baronessas…or to submit to marrying a wealthy gentleman. But Yeva’s father’s misfortune may have cost him his mind, and when he goes missing in the woods, Yeva sets her sights on one prey: the creature he’d been obsessively tracking just before his disappearance.

Deaf to her sisters’ protests, Yeva hunts this strange Beast back into his own territory—a cursed valley, a ruined castle, and a world of creatures that Yeva’s only heard about in fairy tales. A world that can bring her ruin or salvation. Who will survive: the Beauty, or the Beast?

“To the girl
who reads by flashlight
who sees dragons in the clouds
who feels most alive in worlds that never were
who knows magic is real
who dreams
This is for you”

“Fairy tales are about lessons. Those who are virtuous and true are rewarded, while those who are wicked and greedy are punished.”

This is the case where a hyped book lived up to expectations (and we have to admit those are rare). As somebody who is not a fan of re-imagined fairy tales, I was delightfully surprised by this re-telling of Beauty and the Beast.

Yeva and her sisters live with their widowed father, leading a happy life. Yeva (Belle) loves the woods and is an archer that is reluctant to marry. But she will have to marry because she doesn’t want to be a financial burden to her father. A tragedy strikes and they loose all their fortune and they go to the forest. Their new home is cold and strange-far from the beautiful, luxurious home in the past .

Yeva takes reigns then, and goes hunting and gets herself captured by our beast. But beware! This is no Beauty who wears pretty clothes and sits around doing nothing, this is a beauty who spits fire. Our Beauty is a child of the forest and that is how she saves our beast!

In short? I loved it! You won’t regret this one!