Beauty

Beauty has always been embarrassed by her nickname – she is plain and awkward compared to her two elder sisters, Hope and Grace. But what she lacks in beauty she can perhaps make up for in courage.

When their merchant father returns from a failed business trip to the city where they once lived, he tells his daughters a strange tale: how on his way home he lost himself in a winter storm, and stumbled out of it into the summer garden of a magical castle. Innocently he picks a rose, and a fearsome Beast roars at him that his life is forfeit… unless one of his daughters will take his place.

He will not hear of it when Beauty declares that she will return to the castle in his stead, but she is determined to go. ‘He cannot be so bad if he loves roses so much’, she says. ‘Cannot a Beast be tamed?’

This is a captivating retelling of the story of Beauty and the Beast from an award-winning author.