Let’s retell Beauty and the Beast, but make it Russian.
Yeva is Beauty. She’s the youngest of three daughters, and the favorite. She would much rather be out in the woods hunting with her father than playing lady’s maid at the palace. But alas, her father is a merchant now, not a hunter, and so everyone lives in town and Acts Civilized. Until, of course, her father loses everything on a bad investment, and the family is forced to pack up and move to their hunting cabin deep in the woods. Her father starts hunting again, and becomes obsessed with a creature – a beast even – he swears is living in the forest. When he fails to come home after a hunting trip, it’s up to Yeva to find him and find the beast.
From here, we’ve got fairly similar beats to the traditional story, combined with some grim Russian determination for revenge – as Yeva is convinced that the beast holding her captive also killed her father. It’s also very clear pretty early on that the beast is under some kind of curse or spell that he hopes Yeva will be able to break. The relationship that develops between Yeva and the beast follows a pretty standard enemies-to-lovers path.
Beauty and the Beast has never been my favorite fairy tale, and the issues that I have with the original story are present here, as well. This book is also very long for what it is, and could have used a tighter edit to keep things moving. There are also short chapters/interludes from the beast’s POV that didn’t really add much. But I did appreciate the Russian setting and flavor, and I thought the desolate winter and the folk characters sprinkled in were wonderful. I was hoping for Naomi Novik, and this book didn’t quite get there.