Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

Married to a demon to pay for her father's bargain, Nyx has dedicated her life to training to kill him. But not everything is what it seems in his strange, magical castle. Drawn to the demon lord as well as his strange shadow servant, Nyx must use her long buried heart to understand and break his curse.

I'm endlessly fascinated by how different authors reframe the Beauty and the Beast story. This version keeps most of the magic - shifting, moving house, magical servant, a curse on the Beast - and adds extra demons and Greco-Roman inspired details. Pandora is mentioned often, as are the Greek gods.

I think this is set in a sort of alternate Britain. They call it Arcadia, but it seems vaguely Britain-ish, especially at the end when it suddenly turns into Tam Lin. (To be fair, the Tam Lin link was foreshadowed earlier.) There's a touch of Bluebeard at one point, too, and probably other stories I didn't pick up on.

I love the language used in this, and the pace is good, but occasionally things are not explained as well as they could be. However, it's not enough to confuse the story. I enjoyed this and I'll look out for other titles by Rosamund.

Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.


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.

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.

As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex's secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.