One of our keen readers suggested that I might enjoy A Curse So Dark and Lonely which is a romance-centric YA Beauty and the Beast retelling in which the heroine, a modern day teen with cerebral palsy, is transported to an alternate fairytale world and meets a Prince who periodically turns into a monster and eats everyone in sight. This keen reader thought I might like the book and the reader was not wrong. I liked it A LOT.

Harper, a seventeen-year-old young woman in modern-day Washington, D.C., is in a tough spot. Her mom is in the last stages of cancer, her dad is out of the picture, and her brother has been involved in increasingly criminal activities, hoping to get money to support the family and pay for their mother’s treatment. Harper has cerebral palsy which, following several surgeries and other treatments in childhood, causes her to limp. Harper is waiting for her brother to close a deal when she suddenly finds herself in the woods of Emberfall, a fairytale land ruled by Prince Rhen.

Prince Rhen has been cursed to live a season of his life over and over again. At the conclusion to that season (autumn) he turns into a mindless monster and devours everyone he encounters. Then the season begins again, with Rhen and his kingdom continuing to remember and experience the consequences of each consecutive autumn. Rhen can neither grow older, nor kill the enchantress who cursed him, nor kill himself (the season just reboots).

The spell can only be broken when Rhen and a woman mutually fall in love. Initially, Rhen, who was quite a player, thinks this will be easy to accomplish but as years go by and he isolates himself from his kingdom more and more, it seems increasingly impossible. Rhen’s single remaining guard, Grey, goes to Harper’s world hoping to find someone who might fall in love with the prince and ends up with Harper.

This leads to a great clash of personalities. After so many years almost completely alone, wracked with guilt for the actions he takes as a monster, Rhen has sunk into a feeling of self-pity and helplessness. Luckily for him, Harper cares about the people in his kingdom even though she initially dislikes Rhen. Also, Harper has never wallowed in self-pity in her life. So she shakes Rhen up and tries to at least improve life in his kingdom.

She also throws a knife at the Enchantress who cast the spell and says, after being wounded by said Enchantress, “Oh I’m not mad about that, I’m mad that I missed!”

So yeah, Harper’s the bomb.

I mention Harper’s cerebral palsy because it’s unusual and important (and thrilling!) representation, but it’s not a focus of the story. Part of her therapy was horseback riding, which comes in very handy in Emberfall. She’s of the opinion that she can’t dance, but Prince Rhen disagrees. Her leg gets sore and achy, and she has to push herself to her limits to do the things she needs to do. I wished there had been more discussion of her recovery time after she pushes those limits, but I also enjoyed the fact that she’s not defined by her disability. She is determined and stubborn, and I suspect that going through so much therapy and other painful treatments played a big role in developing those parts of her personality. She also has a wry sense of humor. I sure do love a snarker, and Harper give some high-quality snark.

I like it that this romance gets plenty of time to develop. It’s also lovely that Prince Rhen is, all things considered, a polite and decent person. The “Beast” refers to the literal monster he periodically becomes, and is not an allusion to his inability in human form to keep his temper. There’s a lot of honesty in the book, with both Grey and Rhen giving Harper all the answers they can within the limits of magic. Harper learns the conditions of the spell very early in the book:

“I’m not going to fall in love with you,” she says.

Her words are not a surprise. I sigh.

“You won’t be the first.”

Rhen and Harper have good chemistry, but the spell is not about lust. They slowly grow to trust each other, but that’s not enough either. It takes a long time for chemistry to transform into a partnership and then into a more easy friendship and from there into love. There’s a hint of a love triangle with Grey and Harper becoming friends much more quickly than Harper and Rhen do. Count me among many readers who prefer the Grey/Harper pairing to the Rhen/Harper pairing. Luckily the love triangle remains undeveloped and doesn’t take over the book.

I enjoyed the way this book both used and subverted Beauty and the Beast tropes. I enjoyed the plot and all the ways Rhen and Harper bluff their way out of trouble. The characters were all fun to spend time with, and Harper’s brother’s boyfriend nearly stole the book with his awesome medical school skills (I have a thing for medics!). There’s a good blend of angst and humor and worldbuilding.

I have this an  A- instead of an A because it’s pretty melodramatic (to be fair, that’s a common element in fairy tale retellings) and because I just couldn’t shake the feeling that Harper belonged with Grey from the first moment he taught her how to properly hold a dagger. Fans of Grey will be pleased to hear that he gets his own book, A Heart So Fierce and Broken, coming some time in 2020. The author has promised that Grey will have his own love interest as opposed to being in a love triangle. I look forward to it!