Price of a Rose: A Beauty & Beast Tale by Byrd Nash
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Robert Nathaniel Parker is a man who tries to get what he wants, but he is seldom successful and his run of bad luck continues when he is caught trying to steal a rose bush from a neighbouring landowner, one who is known locally as being a beast of a man, but when he is invited in to see the master, he is treated as a guest and offered wine and a game of cards, just as he seems to be winning, he bets his daughters against this rose bush, however, his luck doesn’t hold yet again and he loses the bet, now he just has to tell his three daughters Lily, Rose and Poppy about the situation. As usual, he leaves it up to his eldest to break the bad news, so she tells her other sisters and they work out a plan to uphold the results of their fathers mistake, but in such a way as the rest of the villagers don’t suspect the truth of the situation.

The next day, Lily and Rose go to see the owner of the mansion and while Lily goes in to see the beast himself, she agrees to be his housekeeper in the time between then and when she leaves to be married, reluctantly the beastly man agrees, but without knowing that he is a Parker, as she goes to introduce herself to the household and take a look around the enchanting of not deteriorating interior, the master goes outside and finds Rose in the garden. Rose is obsessed with the outdoors and sees beauty and intrigue in the dilapidated gardens, so when she is approached by the master of the house, she introduces herself and her agreement with him ends up being that she shall work in the garden to restore it to its previous beauty which is no laughing matter as it is in as bad of a state as the house.

As time goes on and the two sisters get on with their jobs in the house, their youngest sister Poppy makes the acquaintance of the master and when caught in his library and seeing that he is having troubles writing his letters, Poppy ends up being his secretary, but she is using that as a front purely to read his books, especially the ones to do with magic to try and remove the curse. The house contains many secrets and as the sisters continue to stay around the estate, experiencing them first hand in some cases, can they work out how to break the curse, or will an unexpected visitor derail all their attempts at restoring happiness to the grand estate and it’s master? This is a sweet retelling of beauty and the beast full of romance, magic and mystery.

Reviewed by @roxsannel

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