Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge (review)

Centuries ago, the Gentle Lord sundered Arcadia from the rest of the world, establishing himself as its ruler and the demons that haunt it as his minions. Seventeen-year-old Nyx Triskelion has been raised since birth to marry and kill the Gentle Lord in order to redeem her father, who made a bargain with the demon that resulted in the death of Nyx’s mother. As it turns out, however, Ignifex, as the demon lord prefers to be called, is a rather beguiling, very human-looking monster, and Nyx finds herself falling for him even as she uncovers more of his terrible deeds. While an obvious twist on “Beauty and the Beast,” this also includes elements of “Bluebeard,” “East of Sun, West of Moon,” and Roman mythology, and the book totally immerses readers a world of dark magic and terrible bargains, where everything good comes at a cost. The push and pull romance between Nyx and Ignifex is pure fairy tale, but the characters themselves are complex and genuinely human as they struggle with their own culpability in a situation that forces them to choose between selfishness and selflessness. Additionally, Nyx’s efforts to shed the assumptions of her father and shift the dynamics in her family while establishing her own identity will likely strike a deep chord with many adolescent readers. The twist at the end literally undoes the world and propels the story momentarily into tragedy, but a bittersweet reunion gives the book and its readers the fairy-tale ending they rightly deserve.