Romance Retellings: Beauties and Beasts

A quick round-up of romances that retell the Beauty and the Beast story

Jessica Pryde

Contributing Editor

Jessica Pryde is a member of that rare breed that grew up in Washington, DC, but is happily enjoying the warmer weather of the desert Southwest. While she is still working on what she wants to be when she grows up, she’s enjoying dabbling in librarianship and writing all the things. She's the editor of Black Love Matters: Real Talk on Romance, Being Seen, and Happily Ever Afters, and her fiction has been published by Generous Press. She can be found drowning in her ever-growing TBR and exclaiming about romance on When in Romance, as well as on social media. Find her exclamations about books and internet ridiculousness on BlueSky (JessIsReading) and instagram/threads (jess_is_reading).

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Sep 22, 2016

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Bookish women of a certain age likely have a special place in their heart for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Okay, maybe not all of us, but there is definitely a good amount of women who came of age with Belle, a new kind of Disney heroine in the early 1990s: she didn’t care about the dumb jock, whether he was pretty or not; she just wanted to read. And read. And read some more. And maybe have some adventures. We were here for it. Or maybe a bookish or non bookish person of a similar or different age has connection to a different Beauty and a different Beast: Catherine and Vincent, or La Belle et Le Bete. But we can say that when it comes to that kind of story, we want more and more of the same. The story is one that continues to be told, whether it’s a retelling of the original Perrault fairy tale, or a reinvisioning of the Disney story with a twist, like the most recent As Old As Time, which asks “what if Belle’s mother cursed the Beast”? But there’s one genre of writing that just can’t walk away from the trope of the beautiful woman (or man, or other) who somehow influences both the internal and external beauty of the person who loves them: Romance. And I’ve got a few favorites for you (though there are literally hundreds of romance novels that feature different twists on the familiar trope). When Beauty Tamed the Beast by Eloisa James Lord of the Abyss by Nalini Singh Beauty Dates the Beast by Jessica Sims Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase The Bride and the Beast by Teresa Medeiros Loving the Beast by Naima Simone Beauty and the Billionaire by Jessica Clare Romancing the Duke by Tessa Dare Beast by Pepper Pace How to Tame Your Duke by Juliana Gray Beau and the Beast by Rick R. Reed Beast by Asha King Bollywood and the Beast by Suleikha Snyder

Want more Beauty and the Beast? Check out Maddie Rodriguez’s Genre Kryptonite from last year, which also has lots of helpful comments. There are so many lists on Goodreads I’m just going to link you to the list of lists. There’s always some new Beauty and the Beast story to discover, so let your cursor be your guide. And revisit the “original” always. We’ve been singing along for 25 years; no reason to stop now!