Big Bad: Ignifex is set up as one, since he is a prince of the demons and the tyrannical ruler of Arcadia. Subverted. Upon his creation, the Kindly Ones have told him the rules of his existence, use him to make bargains with mortals and unleash demons onto the Arcadians against his will. The dress slid down to land on the ground about my feet. Ignifex touched my cheek very gently, as if I was a bird that might be startled into flight. Finally I met his eyes. The romance of Beauty and the Beastmeets the adventure of Gracelingin a dazzling fantasy novel about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny. For fans of bestselling authors Kristin Cashore and Alex Flinn, this gorgeously written debut infuses the classic fairy tale with glittering magic, a feisty heroine, and a romance sure to take your breath away. The setting is fascinating. Based on Greek mythology, this world is in many ways a creation all its own. Almost every fantasy element has some place in mythology, so they might not all make sense to those going in with no knowledge of them. But those who do may enjoy catching the references. I know I missed some but I enjoyed the ones I caught because it gave the story added layers. The island of Arcadia resides within what, from the inside, looks like a parchment paper dome, protected from the outside world but also separate from it. No one knows exactly what happened 900 years ago when the Sundering began, but Nyx's father believes that she can break it when she destroys the Gentle Lord. Of course as is the case in all stories, nothing is as simple as it seems, and that's when the wonder of this book unfolds.

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Betrayed by her family yet bound to obey, Nyx rails against her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, she abandons everything she’s ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, disarm him, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people. this book is best categorized as a fantasy romance, but i was completely unmoved by the romance itself. which - yes, is a familiar feeling for me, since i'm not a fan of romances, so i'm an easy target for your accusations of not being the right audience. howevs, even when i read a romance that doesn't make me swoon or whatever, i can usually understand why it would work for other readers - i can see that the bones (heh) of the relationship are solid and why the two would fall for each other and why readers would cheer. but this one - this is such a perfunctory romance that exists only because we are told it exists. technically it's a love triangle, and it's at least an interesting version of a love triangle, but it's also the worst kind of instalove because it's unfounded, unearned, and circumstantially selfish. Not to mention, the insta-love, the love triangle, the my-determined-will-is-broken-by-a-single-kiss, the exhausting amount of lust, it’s all M E S S. She spends SO MUCH time flip-flopping between Ignifex and Shade, ONLY TO HAVE US BE TOLD THEY'RE (KIND OF) THE SAME PERSON. Like what in the world???

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The world-building was SO badly done. It was sketchy and had huge gaps and I completely couldn't connect to the characters. I had to skim parts of the book because the transitions were disjointed and abrupt or the story was simply yawn-worthy and confusing. I wish there had been more information about the Resurgandi and the Hermetic workings they invented. How do these workings or sigils relate to the Kindly Ones? How can a user channel their power? It's like Rosamund Hodge tried to incorporate so many elements of Greek mythology that she stymied her own story, because everything when thrown together barely makes any sense. Nyx Triskelion is the main protagonist of the Cruel Beauty, daughter of Leonidas and Thisbe Triskelions, twin sister of Astraia and the wife of Prince Marcus Valerius Lux. She is currently seventeen and is a student at the Lyceum of Sardis.

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Balance Between Good and Evil: In the ending, the two pieces of Marcus Valerius Lux's soul reunite and the result is much kinder than either Shade or Ignifex. I HATE finishing a book that I absolutely adored reading - it makes me walk around in a depressed state as I come to realization that I might not hear from the characters again, that I might not find such a wonderful book again ... This is how I feel right now: Torn. Thrilled. Depressed. Jovial. And as most YAs...she will fall in love with him..., and again, as most YAs, she have feelings for his servant, his Shadow, Shade. But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle-a shifting maze of magical rooms-enthralls her. Cruel Beauty (2014) is a Young Adult novel by Rosamund Hodge, and a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, blending the traditional fairytale with classical mythology.

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Really, I devoured the second half of this book! And I nearly cried because of the destiny of Nyx and Ignifex :(. It was so unfair! UGH. About the ending... I'm kinda torn. I didn't expected it and I like that, also, I think it was sweet and overall, a good ending, but I don't know, I feel like I didn't fully understood what happened (again, because the world and the demons and the gods were so confusing)... Firstly Shade seemed to be genuinely gentle and helpful, especially towards Nyx. However, nine hundred years of service for Ignifex had drove him somehow mad and desperate, causing him to kill five of his master's wives trying to show them the true events in the Heart of Fire. Central Theme: Nothing is what it seems. The Gentle Lord's castle is a crumbling ruin from outside and a lavish residence from the inside. Ignifex is revealed to be less cruel or malicious than he initially appears despite embodying the dark side of prince Marcus's soul. Shade, while having had all malice purged from him and appearing as Nyx's apparent ally, has caused the deaths of eight women due to his deceit and cares more about destroying the Gentle Lord than her wellbeing. We'll both be foolish," I said, "and vicious and cruel. We will never be safe with each other. But we'll pretend we know how to love." I smiled at him. "And someday we'll learn." In brief: Penryn knew she was acting selfishly and kept doing so in spite of everything, and I loved it; Nyx knew she was a tool in The Greater Good hands and resented it profoundly, and never, not even once, she thought she could find another way, resulting in her (and us) never understanding which side she was on. And I hated it.

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It seems that all Nyx does is explore rooms in the house and debate on whether she should act on her attraction to Ignifex. Because of this, the pace of the book was unbearably slow and most of the time I just kept asking myself why I should care about anything she was doing. Apart from kissing her captor and having feelings for his servant, she basically did nothing. With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people. I think this review is more of an incoherent mess of feelings, so I'll stop now before the drooling starts. What I want to know is this: when is the author releasing another book? This was a very enjoyable read, though not without its faults. It is supposed to be a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, but I felt like it had hints of the fairy tales Rumpelstiltskin and Bluekbeard as well. I can go on for days about the plot, setting, grammatical structure blah blah blah, but let's be honest, what makes or breaks a book is its narrator. If you don't like the narrator, screw the rest of the book; I really liked this book's main character, Nyx.One of the biggest intrigues for me came down to the ‘Cupid and Psyche’ like marriage of Nyx to the monstrous Demon ‘Gentle Lord.’ Initially, “Beauty and the Beast” was partially a metaphor for arranged marriage (the beast being less ‘beastly than other men of the time) without the characters actually being married until later on in the tale. In “Cupid and Psyche,” this wasn’t the case, Psyche married off to a monstrous man (by her own family) before they meet. She hears tales of what a monster he is, so is surprised she enjoys his nightly visits. The story is much more sensual than many other versions of the tale, but still themes of entering the unknown and a sort of sexual awakening are present in most versions (some much less blatant than others). It is these themes of Nyx’s marriage to a monster that really create a fascinating romance, one that surprisingly doesn’t feel stale. Extra points for never giving a romance novel type of vibe either… Shade has been Ignifex's servant, and in fact one of the halves of the last prince - Marcus Valerius Lux - with all the malice and hatred removed. Eventually he reunited with Ignifex and regains his body. The castle itself and the setting are a lot more well done. This book truly runs very parallel to Beauty and the Beast in that regards. We have a magical shifting castle, we have wondrous ballrooms filled with sparkling water. We have ivy-covered libraries. We have a wondrous library, we have a magical wardrobe (I NEED ONE FOR CHRISTMAS), we have invisible hands conjuring up feasts and utensils (except without the singing and dancing, the best part!), we have a forbidden object. Betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom, Nyx has always known that her fate was to marry him, kill him, and free her people from his tyranny. But on her seventeenth birthday when she moves into his castle high on the kingdom’s mountaintop, nothing is what she expected—particularly her charming and beguiling new husband. Nyx knows she must save her homeland at all costs, yet she can’t resist the pull of her sworn enemy—who’s gotten in her way by stealing her heart.”

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It’s supposed to be a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, but we got one hell of a desnse-uninteresting-FRIVOLOUS-beauty and one hell of a not-so-beastly-beast. The first novel that Rosamund Hodge published is Cruel Beauty and it is a novel where Greek mythology meets Beauty and the Beast in this sweeping fantasy about one girl’s journey to fulfill her destiny and the monster who gets in her way by stealing her heart. This dazzling romantic story is about our innermost desires, which have the power of changing our destiny. The main character in the story is called Nyx. Ever since she was born, she’s been engaged to marry an evil ruler just because her father had been foolish enough to strike a bargain. And since she was born, she’s been training to kill the evil ruler. She is supposed to be killed by her husband at some point in time, how is that for a honeymoon! But, and there is always a but, Ignifex is not what he seems. Yes, he has the corpses of his eight other brides in a dungeon all laid out, but I digress. He seems to be under some kind of evil spell and he's not like I said what he seems to be.I'm not sure of what to think of this book... I really loved it... but at the same time I didn´t? Let me try to arrange my thoughts... on paper, the concept of fusing multiple fairytales with classical mythology is exciting and should make for a pleasantly dense story that is at once comfortably familiar but also studded with surprising AHA moments as the overlaps and contrasts begin to manifest. however - there wasn't a true marriage between the elements here. their presence was more decorative than functional, and while it occasionally meshed well, overall it was just too cluttered. it's like when you have a really delicious cupcake and it's already got a tasty frosting on top but then someone thinks "add gummy worms!" and it throws off the texture and the taste and you have to chew SO MUCH you forget about how tasty the cupcake was because you're so focused on not choking to death.