Author Biography
G.R. Mannering (aka Rose Mannering) signed with the literary
agency Creative Authors at age eighteen and secured her first publishing deal a
year later. She lives in Kent, England.
Published By: Sky Pony Press
Year: 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62087-988-7
Reading Level: Grades 7 and up
Reader’s Annotation:
With silver skin, white hair, purple eyes and magic in her
veins, Beauty grows up as a despised outcast. But in fleeing from persecution,
she finds a new life in a mysterious castle… a castle that belongs to a Beast.
Plot Summary:
In the squalid city of Sago, a baby is born with freakish
silver skin, amethyst eyes and white hair. Her mother then mysteriously
vanishes and the aristocratic House of Rose grudgingly takes her in. Mockingly
dubbed “Beauty,” neglected by the family and abused by a cruel nanny, she grows
to be wayward and half-feral, with the strange ability to glimpse the future in
her dreams. Then a violent uprising sweeps the city, targeting all those with
Magic Blood for death. Beauty’s only friend, the kindly stable man Owaine,
saves her life by adopting her as his daughter and whisking her away to a new
life as a peasant in his native Hillands.
But safety is short-lived. Her former foster-brother Eli, now a ruthless State official, finds
her and demands her hand in marriage in exchange for her life. At the same
time, a business journey goes horribly awry and leaves Owaine cursed with a
deadly supernatural illness. Beauty is forced to flee into a forbidden forest…
to a castle inhabited by a monstrous Beast, who can save her adoptive father,
but only in exchange for her freedom.
Critical Evaluation:
This dark-edged fantasy novel offers yet another variation on
the ever-popular "Beauty and the Beast"
theme. One in which Beauty is a “beast” in her own right, reviled both for her
strange appearance and for her status as a Magic Blood. Admittedly, its
components aren’t especially unique. Beauty’s early years bring to mind a blend
of Wicked, Jane Eyre and the first
few chapters of Harry Potter. Also, despite its very different veneer, the fairy-tale retelling itself owes quite a
bit to Robin McKinley’s Beauty (e.g. the
heroine’s passion for horses and initial rejection of fancy clothes) and to the
Disney film (e.g. the Gaston-like figure of Eli). Nor is the concept of
magic-users being persecuted a new one. But the whole is greater than the sum
of the parts, as these various elements are creatively combined into an
atmospheric, darkly magical page-turner.
The bleakness of Beauty’s upbringing,
the pervading poverty and social unrest of the pseudo-Mediterranean setting,
and the horrors faced by the Magic are vividly and harshly brought to life. But
so is the dusky, rose-scented enchantment of the Beast’s castle and of the
power that Magics possess. This blend of atmospheres reflects the heroine
herself: the fierce yet vulnerable, freakish yet ethereally lovely Beauty, almost
a cross between Robin McKinley’s Beauty and Gregory Maguire’s Elphaba, who not
only learns to love a Beast, but discovers her destiny to fight for the rights
of her fellow Magics. The Beast is underdeveloped by comparison, but still an
effective presence, and while the ending leaves questions unanswered, it makes
the reader eager for the sequel it clearly points toward. While it might not
suit all tastes, this is still a novel that "Beauty
and the Beast" lovers should waste no time in trying to find.
Curriculum Ties:
*Fairy-tale retellings
Challenge Issues:
*Child abuse
*Violence
*Disturbing imagery
*A forced kiss
Why This Book?
While it can’t replace Robin McKinley’s Beauty as (arguably) the definitive YA "Beauty and the Beast" retelling, Roses
is still a very worthwhile edition to any collection of fairy-tale novels.
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