Actual rating: 2.5 stars


"A Curse so Dark and Lonely" is a beauty and the beast retelling and I was certain I was going to love this book. I love fairytale retellings and I was so eager to get my hands on this one and I read it as fast as I could!

The book as a whole was an interesting read and I was for sure expecting to give it at least a 3 star rating. For me, it's weakest point was the romance. Unfortunately the story needed a good and strong romance to progress and keep the readers' attention, but this book had such a messy romance, for lack of a better word.

Rhen and Harper are supposed to fall in love, but their chemistry wasn't even the 1/10 of the chemistry Harper had with Grey (Rhen's royal guard). Harper and Grey were the cutest thing together, their chemistry was over the roof and at some point on part of me was hoping that they would ditch Rhen and run away together. I don't even know why the author would give us better communication, better conversations, etc with the guard instead of with the prince. Because when Rhen and Harper starting having their own "moments", they paled in comparison to Grey and Harper's moments, that where more subtle but way more affectionate. I don't know if the intention was to create a love triangle, but for me it failed nevertheless.

Another thing I found super predictable, was the plot twist. From the moment Karis Luran (a queen of a neighboring kingdom) said all that she said, I knew who she meant and I wasn't surprised at all when the big reveal happened at the end of the book. Also, why would a queen say something as precarious as this, in front of practically everyone, instead of only to Rhen? I don't know the reasoning behind this and I'm starting to think that there was no reasoning behind this, it was just convenient for the plot and this happened quite often.

All in all, it's a book that could have been so much better if it had a more established romance and I'm afraid I won't be reading it again.