We all love fairy tales as kids, and
some of us continue to love them forever. Good old Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were
onto something when they started collected the dark and creepy stories from the
past. But 'Beauty and the Beast' wasn't from the Grimm boys. This is a truly
French story: gorgeous girl falls in love with frighteningly ugly creature,
entirely against her better judgment, thus breaking a curse and turning him all
pretty. Happy ending, yay!
But when Greta Garbo saw Jean
Cocteau's 1946 movie version of the fairytale, La Belle et la Bête, and the star, Jean Marais, turned from
delicious, desirable, delectable, deadly Beast to wimpy guy, she famously said:
'Give me back my beautiful beast.'
Right there with you, girl. The Beast,
at least in that movie, won hands down for style, charisma and general awesomeness
against his 'human' counterpart.
When I wanted to write something fairy
tale-ish, I decided to retell this story with a bit of a gender switch. I wanted
to see how a young man, smart but a little naïve, would deal with a strong
woman who hides her face from him at all times. The result turned into a tragic
love story with magical interludes and lots and lots of books.
In my opinion, every story should
have lots and lots of books. And then some more.
So if you love fairytales, I'd
appreciate it if you'd give
'The Beauty in the Beast'
a read and let me know how you liked it. It's free for a short time at
Smashwords. And here's the cover:
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