Beauty Tremain had spent her life being thrown into the path of ogres and noblemen by her title-hungry father, Noble Tremain (whose name is really Frank.) Escaping the bonds of her sadistic matchmaker father to work for a dragon-owned temp agency, Beauty hesitantly takes a mysterious job working for a butler in an enormous mansion. When the mansion’s owner, James Hightower, proves to be a seven-foot-tall brooding beast with the bad habit of hurling statuary from the rooftop, it’s up to Beauty to roll up her sleeves and argue her way to a paycheck. When Beauty and James start having feelings for each other, however, they determine their relationship is the least of their concerns. Beauty’s father re-enters the scene armed with lawsuits and threats. To add to the chaos, James’s mischievous ex-fiancee shows up to reclaim him. Beauty and the beast need to somehow control their tempers long enough to return the favors with schemes of their own.
GUEST POST:
The
Beauty and Beast in all of us
By
Jenniffer Wardell
For
writers, characters can become like family members – we listen to them talk a
lot, know all of their dirty little secrets, are there through all their best
and worst moments, and occasionally we feel a burning need to stab them or drop
them off the edge of a cliff. And, like that sibling who's completely the
opposite of you but somehow just as stubborn as you are, they can sometimes
help a writer better understand the best and worst parts of themselves.
In
"Beast Charming," I wanted to create a version of "Beauty and
the Beast" where Beauty feels just as lost and out of place as Beast does.
She's got her own anger issues, just like James, and never seems to say the
"right" thing no matter how much she wants to. You don't have to be
tall and furry to feel like a freak, and if you're carrying something like that
around inside you there's no makeover in the world that will take it away
again. True Beastliness is on the inside, not the outside, and doesn't
necessarily have anything to do with what you look like. What does help is
finding someone who feels the same way, and realizing that it's not so bad
being out there on the fringes together.
Having
plenty of firsthand experience at feeling like a freak – my school years were
one long blur of sheer awkwardness – it was easy to tap into that for my
heroine and hero. True, I've never been enchanted by a vengeful ex, or forced
into fairy tale after fairy tale by my father in the hopes of getting a son-in-law
who's a member of the nobility, but feeling strange and alone is a universal
experience. I gave Beauty and James all of my fears, all of my doubts, and had
them work through them together. By the end, I felt like the three of us could
have been pretty good friends if we'd all happened to grow up in the same
version of reality.
More
importantly, I wanted other people who felt the same way to feel as close to
Beauty and James as I do. We Beasts of the world don't tend to get our own
heroes – no matter how much the character growls or shouts, the beastly
character technically qualifies as the dude in distress – which means that
we're stuck as side characters. As the person who gets fixed, or changed.
Instead
of a heroine and/or hero riding in to save the day, all shiny and bright, I
wanted Beauty and Beast to be able to save each other. I wanted them to be
brave in a way I wasn't when I was younger, to learn to love themselves more
fully than I managed it back in those days. To learn that they were worthy of
having a story that was all about them.
Beauty
and James have some of my greatest weaknesses – plus some I'm happy to admit I
don't have – but they also represent the best parts of my heart.
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JENNIFFER WARDELL—Author Information and Useful Links
Below are the links to the Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and
Goodreads listings. If you've reviewed the book, we welcome you to post your
review/rating there:
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Beast-Charming-Jenniffer-Wardell/dp/1939967384
B&N:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/beast-charming-jenniffer-wardell/1119362021?ean=9781939967381
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18131016-beast-charming?from_search=true
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