The Belle and the Beard
Ratings5
Average rating3.8
Jasper-Anne Cleary's guide to salvaging your life when you find yourself publicly humiliated, out of work, and unemployable at 35-not to mention newly single: 1. Run away. Seriously, there's no shame in disappearing. Go to that rustic old cottage your aunt left you. Look out for the colony of bats and the leaky roof. Oh, and the barrel-chested neighbor with shoulders like the broad side of a barn. Definitely look out for him. 2. Stop wallowing and stay busy. It doesn't matter whether you know how to bake or fix things around the house. Do it anyway. Dust off your southern hospitality and feed that burly, bearded neighbor some pecan pie. 3. Meet new people. Chat up the grumpy man-bear, pretend to be his girlfriend when his mother puts you two on the spot, agree to go as his date to a big family party. Don't worry-it's only temporary. 4. Cry it out. Screwing up your life entitles you to wine, broody-moody music, and uninterrupted sobbing. 5. Get over it all by getting under someone. Count on your fake boyfriend to deliver some very real action between the sheets. 6. Move on. The disappearing act, the cottage, the faux beau-none of it can last forever. Linden Santillian's guide to surviving the invasion when a hell-in-heels campaign strategist moves in next door: 1. Do not engage. There is no good reason you should chop her wood, haul her boxes, or pick her apples. 2. Do not accept gifts, especially not the homemade ones. Disconnect the doorbell, toss your phone over a bridge, hide in the basement if you must, but do not eat her pie. 3. Do not introduce her to your friends and family. They'll favor her over you and never let you forget it. 4. Do not intervene when she's crying on the back porch. Ignore every desire to fix the entire world for her. By no means should you take her into your arms and memorize her peach-sweet curves. 5. Do not take her to bed, even if it's just to get her out of your system. 6. Do not, under any circumstances, fall in love with her. Warning: This hot, modern take on Beauty and the Beast includes a meet-burglary, an immortal cat, a biohazard of a banana bread, a meddling mother, fancy toast, and a temporary fling that starts feeling a little too permanent.
Series
Series
3 primary booksThe Santillian Triplets
The Santillian Triplets is a 3-book series with 3 primary works first released in 2019 with contributions by Kate Canterbary.
Reviews
Popular Reviews
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I really enjoyed this book, and I thought it was perfectly cast. Jo Raylan and Zachary Webber were brilliant. I loved that the author included pansexuality in the story, and it felt like a natural part of it. The author didn't make a big song and dance about being inclusive in her storytelling, she just was. I will always love that.
Linden and Jasper are such a fun couple, and I really enjoyed their dynamic.
The side characters in this story are all the things. Especially Linden's parents. I laughed so much. I hear his siblings have books too, so I'm going to need to move them up my TBL because I need more from his family.
My only issue was the way it felt necessary to keep trying to show that the heroine was an independent woman by telling the reader rather than showing it with her actions. It felt very much like an ‘I am woman, hear me roar' thing and it wouldn't have been that off-putting if it wasn't continuous throughout the book. That being said, I really enjoyed Jasper's progression through the story, and how Linden helped her see things through a different lens.
After reading [b:The Spanish Love Deception 54189398 The Spanish Love Deception Elena Armas https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1610900883l/54189398.SY75.jpg 84555384], I couldn't get through another book with needlessly combative main characters. In both these books, the mcs interaction was almost exactly like thisheroine: I have a problem but I absolutely don't want your helphero: you obviously need my help. Take it!heroine: no, absolutely not!rinse and repeat about 200 times until the hero helps the heroine and then although she's upset it works out in the end.I truly don't understand why these authors kept putting their heroines in positions where the heroes would continually violate their wishes and this was framed as a good thing? In these situations, the heroine is being so needlessly stubborn in the name of feistiness that the heroes' overbearing actions seem like common sense but I hate the implications of this. I'm very uncomfortable when people's explicit wishes are ignored so I particularly hate it when authors construct situations where ignoring someone's wishes is the right thing to do. Don't see myself finishing this.
