New York Times bestselling author Renée Ahdieh returns with a sumptuous, sultry and romantic new series set in 19th century New Orleans where vampires hide in plain sight.
In 1872, New Orleans is a city ruled by the dead. But to seventeen-year-old Celine Rousseau, New Orleans provides her a refuge after she’s forced to flee her life as a dressmaker in Paris. Taken in by the sisters of the Ursuline convent along with six other girls, Celine quickly becomes enamored with the vibrant city from the music to the food to the soirées and—especially—to the danger. She soon becomes embroiled in the city’s glitzy underworld, known as La Cour des Lions, after catching the eye of the group’s leader, the enigmatic Sébastien Saint Germain. When the body of one of the girls from the convent is found in the lair of La Cour des Lions, Celine battles her attraction to him and suspicions about Sébastien’s guilt along with the shame of her own horrible secret.
When more bodies are discovered, each crime more gruesome than the last, Celine and New Orleans become gripped by the terror of a serial killer on the loose—one Celine is sure has set her in his sights . . . and who may even be the young man who has stolen her heart. As the murders continue to go unsolved, Celine takes matters into her own hands and soon uncovers something even more shocking: an age-old feud from the darkest creatures of the underworld reveals a truth about Celine she always suspected simmered just beneath the surface.
At once a sultry romance and a thrilling murder mystery, master storyteller Renée Ahdieh embarks on her most potent fantasy series yet: The Beautiful.
My Review:
| “Never forget this as long as you live. Words are weapons. And nothing else matters when the Devil has you by the balls.”
I love Vampires. They are dead, heartless, and like to drink blood. Can anything be more dreamy? So I was excited to see that they are bringing back the Vampire genre again. But if this is the beginning of what’s to come, then I want no part of it. This was the first book that I’ve read by this author. There’s a huge cult hype about her but I was very underwhelmed by this. The best thing about this book was the cover. Not much happened in the Vampire department. I was waiting for gallons of blood to be spilled, Vampires lurking in every dark corner, and to be spooked out of my mind. None of that happened. A little here or there but nothing like I imagined. All of the characters weren’t memorable. None of them stuck out and I felt nothing as some of them found themselves in dire predicaments. They were just so blah. Sébastien Saint Germain showed up and was mysterious as all hell. I was waiting for him to be so swoony that I would add him to the list of fictional boyfriends. He would be right up there with King Cardan but his character was very poorly written. He was a side character at best. The Beautiful started off promising but took a backslide into boring after a hundred pages. It never dug itself out of that hole. I was so glad when it was over. I dislike that this is the start of the Vampire genre making its way back, fingers crossed for better Vampire books in the future. |
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