Review: Beast’s Mercy by Rebecca Massey

“You will not leave me,” Dalvin told him firmly. “My prince, you will not leave me.” —Chap 24

Blurb:

Four years ago, the Kingdom of Creatia closed its doors on the world. Now, the gates are open.
Dalvin has returned to fix the wrongs of the past and help Prince Vincent find a worthy bride. But something dark has taken up residence inside the palace, and Dalvin has to find a way to slay the beast before it takes his prince from him.

For Dalvin, it was a tale as old as time.
For Vincent, it was a dark path to happily ever after.

It is time for the beast to tell the real story.

*This book contains subject matter suitable for a mature audience.

Review:

Style

Beast’s Mercy was such a quick read, I’m pretty sure I finished it in two days. There was a slight hiccup in the beginning with a past event being repeated multiple times without it being explained - this got me intrigued at the beginning and then it just got frustrating as the event kept on being referenced without being revealed. There was also a time change in those first few chapters that it took me a while to understand it happened, but understand I did and then I was in this world and I refused to leave it.

After this first confusion, everything smoothed out and I was in for a fast ride from there on out. Rebecca Massey does an absolutely amazing job at grabbing you and pulling you in the world and making you dig your teeth in to finish the story. If it isn’t the intrigue of the past, it is the growing romance between our male leads. If it isn’t the vying princesses, it is the family drama. If it isn’t the curse and magic of the world, it is the personal drama between our leads. There was so much happening and all of it was so well balanced that none of the aspects felt overwhelming, but there was always something interesting happening and keeping me hooked. 

There were only two other things that threw me off a little. We had an antagonist whose name changed. I’m not sure if it was a spelling mistake or the author decided on a different name in a near-finished draft, but it ended up throwing me out of the world when I caught the different names. And the other thing was the suspense - I’m not a murder mystery reader, but I felt like it was easy to spot the culprit for the crimes quite earlier on. The more the story went on, the more I kept hoping I was wrong and a nice twist was going to come.

And then it did! While my initial guess was correct, Rebecca did a nice add on to it that I didn’t expect - but there was just enough lead into it so that it didn’t feel completely out of nowhere. Overall, very well done in the romance and fairytale aspect, a little on the nose for the crimes for me. 

Story

Although marketed as a Beauty and the Beast retelling, I believe Beast’s Mercy by Rebecca Massey is a lot more than that. To me it felt like a mix of the tv show The Bachelor (based on commercials and ads I’ve seen of it) with the princesses all arriving and vying for the prince’s favour to become his wife, mixed in with the game Clue as murders are happening in a castle and everybody is closed inside it, and then the perfect spark of curses, magic, and mystery as common in the fairytales I grew up with. 

Throw in a gay prince into the mix with a penchant for the dramatic and for me, personally, this was an amazing mix. When I wasn’t focused on the murders, I was wondering which princess would interest our prince (though we all know there wasn’t going to be one). When the princesses took a break, it was because our prince was running amok as a beast or murders were happening. 

The addition of our secondary male character, who we all knew was going to win, there was also the pressure of the royal parents - the Queen who is so adamant on saving her son and getting him married that she ignores a lot of obvious facts, and the King who seems torn between his loyalty to his wife and his love of his son. The family dynamic between the three is so wonderfully complicated and realistic that it just added on another flavour to the whole thing. 

Setting

The only thing that threw me off with the setting in this book was the map at the beginning. I love me some books with maps, I like referring back to them on a regular basis but… the entire story took place in one location. Because I had already seen the map, I kept expecting other parts of the world to pop up. They did, in the mention of where some characters were from, but nothing more than that. It was only after I learned that this book is part of a series of standalones in the same world that the map made sense to me (which was after I finished the book).

Now, having said that, the setting itself was interesting. Everything took place in the castle where the main character is from and will reign. There are mentions of him having been somewhere else in the past, but again - we don’t go there as readers. Considering the events of the story, prior to our main plotline you would expect a regular castle from your childhood stories of a kingdom and a few others around it in mention. But the changes within the world for both the characters and the readers were so well done, even if, as readers, we didn’t get to experience the castle before the events that led to it. 

My absolutely favourite part of this story’s setting, however, was the magic. It was not explained in detail, but it was very reminiscent of fairy tales. Considering this is a Beauty and the Beast retelling, the magic system both makes sense and how the characters interact with it is so smooth that it only adds to the plot rather than taking away from it. Loved the throw-back to the reference with the roses, by the way - it was done in such a simple way that had me grinning as wide as our main character. 

Extras

Beast’s Mercy was a really hard one for me to pick up. The cover did not draw me in at all. In fact, I’m pretty sure I got it out of a sale where the book covers weren’t displayed and I was convinced by the blurb. And then it sat on my digital bookshelf for quite a while because I kept ignoring the cover. 

In the end, I had told myself there is nothing wrong with DNFing and I sorted my TBR by alphabetical order and – I am so glad I got this book. The cover does not do it justice, at all. It was only after I finished it and looked for other works written by the author that I realized not only is this part of a series (standalones in the same world) but all of them have a similar theme for the covers. I guess I can stop complaining about the cover now, but still - not to my taste. Good thing the story is because everything about it drew me in and kept me.