Secret Beast is the first book in the "Beast of Bishop's Landing" but is also part of the world of the "Constantine and Morelli's". For some reason I had totally spaced that there was such a big world here and I just haven't found many dark romances to intrigue me but now I am intrigued.

I was drawn to this one because its a Beauty and Beast retelling. The first book was hard to get into. I also hadn't read this author before, so I did have to adjust to her writing style and unfortunately I almost wanted to DNF this book, but I am glad that I stuck with it (because hint I couldn't put down books 2 or 3 haha) but also there are so many retelling connections in this book. I loved how close of a retelling it is....just dark romance style. Now this is fairly dark in some respects but especially in how the hero treats the heroine in the bedroom so be mindful its very humiliation/degradation type of kink. I wasn't a fan in how this author wrote it, I have only read this kink by K. Webster (who was brilliant at it) but it just didn't do much for me so I just skimmed those scenes as its not normally my cup of tea. But I did love see these two fall for each other. This also has aspects of forbidden love as their families are at war basically. Our heroine, the rose, of the story is looking to save her father from a foolish mistake. So she offers herself in trade for her father. She is to be with Leo for a month at his beck and call. Leo is damaged, scarred and constantly in pain. He is a protector of his family and is a beast to all but those closest to him. Seeing him change from being a beast to Haley to slowly changing into being protective and their chemistry was spot on. I loved the evolution of the fairytale that is expressed within this first book. And I just had to jump into book 2.