Who Can Truly Fall in Love with a Beast?

This is the question in this twist on a tale as old as time. Beastly Beauty is the newest YA fantasy by JENNIFER DONNELLY, where a cursed woman and a thief must learn that the key to breaking out of their gilded cages is to fix their wounded hearts. Jennifer will be joined in conversation by her editor, Mallory Kass, better known to YA readers as author KASS MORGAN.

In Beastly Beauty, when Arabella makes her debut in society, she knows she's going to have trouble being the sweet and compliant girl of her parents' dreams in order to marry well. What she didn't see coming was an attempt to quell her strong emotions backfiring and resulting in a curse on not only herself, but everyone in her castle, too. As the years pass, Arabella abandons hope. The curse is her fault — after all, there's nothing more "beastly" than a girl who expresses her anger — and the only way to break it is to find a boy who loves her for her true self: a cruel task for a girl who's been told she's impossible to love.

That is, until a handsome thief named Beau makes his way into the castle, thrilling the captive servants, who are convinced he is the one to break the curse. But Beau — spooked by all that's going on in the castle — only wants to escape. He learned long ago that love is only an illusion. If Beau and Arabella have any hope of breaking the curse, they must learn to trust their wounded hearts, and realize that the cruelest prisons of all are the ones we build for ourselves.

Monday, May 6th at 6PM ET at Our 17th St Store!

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