THE FAIRY TALE:
I wanted to learn a couple of the most original versions of Beauty and the Beast before writing the book, but it was impossible to pin down where the story originated! The best answer is eighteenth-century France. Some people say the earliest version came from Charles Perrault (who died in 1703), while some say Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve wrote it in 1740. In one version, Beauty was the youngest of six children. In another version, she was the youngest of three. But in most versions, the Beast caught someone stealing a rose, so I knew that had to stay.
I believe the 1946 movie adaptation came up with Avenant, a villain who wanted to kill the Beast, instead of Beauty’s sisters being the evil culprits. Disney turned Avenant into Gaston, and that’s where I came up with Gloria. It seemed crazy for my Gloria to attempt to physically kill my Beast (Isobel), but I thought she could definitely kill Isobel’s spirit, so that’s what she did.
I liked how the 1978 book Beauty by Robin McKinley and the Disney version made Beauty bookish, so I kept that. Plus, I wanted to keep the main theme that a person needed to express their heart and mind to become worth loving, so I used that too.
There is also a mirror involved in the original fairy tale that helps bring Beauty and the Beast back together at the end, so I found a way for a mirror—without all the cool magical stuff involved—to bring them back together at the end of my tale as well. And that’s how Shaw and Isobel’s story became Shaw and Isobel’s story!
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Epilogue
Behind the Book
Linda Kage, Monster Among the Roses
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