Review: The Bride and the Beast by Teresa Medeiros
We all know that the hardest books to write about are the ones that didn’t move us one way or another. They come into our lives, we read them, and then quickly move on to the next book.
This was the experience I had with The Bride and the Beast by Teresa Medeiros. It featured prominently on several lists of romances with a Beauty and the Beast theme, so I figured it would be something I’d like. And while I didn’t dislike it, I wasn’t really in love either.
Our story takes place in 18th-century Scotland, in the village of Ballybliss. Apparently, to live in Ballybliss, there’s a requirement that someone drop you on your head repeatedly as a child. Put another way, none of these people, with the arguable exception of our heroine, are smarter than a fifth grader.
Our heroine is Gwendolyn Wilder, the plump, bookish daughter of the former clan chieftain’s steward. Gwen’s three sisters are all skanky whores in the making, but of course, Gwen is too pure and innocent for such things. When the Dragon, who is reported to have moved into the clan chieftain’s former castle and who is, incidentally, our hero, starts making demands of the villagers for vast sums of money, they decide to eliminate their strongest link and send Gwen to be a virgin sacrifice. The dragon takes her in, keeping her prisoner in his castle because if she knew who he was she could tell the villagers and somehow ruin his unnecessarily convoluted revenge scheme.
I liked our leads well enough. Gwen is the sgtronger character of the two, because even though she is pretty much a typical example of a romance novel heroine, she doesn’t go around insisting people call her the Dragon. The Dragon, on the other hand, sorely tested my patience. His identity is patently obvious to any reader who read the prologue, and I didn’t really buy his motivations for deciding to put forth such a cheesy disguise. Granted, he does live in Ballybliss, so maybe he, too, was dropped on his head as a child?
The romance between Gwen and her hero is cute if predictable. There is also a secondary romance between the Dragon’s one friend, the “plodding son of a minor viscount” and one of Gwen’s sisters, who is less debauched than the others. I actually enjoyed that subplot more, because I love a good beta hero and Tupper was adorable. Much more adorable than the Dragon.
Ultimately, though, this book is quite forgetable. I am not likely to remember it in the future, so I don’t feel comfortable recommending it. I’m also not sure how well it fits with my Beauty and the Beast theme this week, since the Dragon isn’t very beastly, and, in fact, the story is more Cupid and Psyche than anything else. I give this one a C.