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New Release Review! BABY AND THE BEAST by Taylor Holloway (Princes of Hollywood)

Baby and the Beast cover

Connor Prince is a beast.

He’s a rich, controlling, handsome ex-movie star with one dream left in his cold, godforsaken heart.

He wants a baby, and he wants me to be his surrogate.

I thought he was just a weirdly good-looking, grumpy hobo until he took me to his freakin’ castle and made me an indecent proposal.

The contract doesn’t actually look too bad.

All I have to do is hang out for nine months getting pedicures and massages while gestating his child.

I’ll even have a chef.

And I need the money.

My profession, making gory practical effects for horror and sci-fi movies, isn’t exactly a growth industry.

Since my family is on the verge of bankruptcy and I just got fired and blacklisted for kicking a spectacularly creepy B-list actor in the nuts for groping me, this could solve all my problems.

But the castle ends up being a gilded cage, with Connor controlling what I can eat, where I can go, and what I can do.

He’s driving me up the wall with his growling, snarly crap.

Between pregnancy hormones, Connor pushing me to the limits of my patience, and the fact that he’s absurdly hot under the mountain man beard, frustrations are rising quickly.

The angry kind. And the sexy kind.

I’m beginning to suspect that a good man might be lurking under Connor’s permanent scowl, but I know getting entangled with him is a terrible idea.

He’s got demons and secrets, and I’m… what exactly?

I’m the girl with crooked pigtails and paint splattered overalls who makes badass blood geysers and werewolf puppets.

I deal in fake monsters. Not real ones.

I’m not the right girl for Connor Prince.

Which is really unfortunate because I might be falling in love with him…

Review:

This was really cute!

Ms Holloway is a new-to-me author, and one who I will definitely be looking for more from. Baby and the Beast is (of course) a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast–readers who have seen the Disney version(s) recently (or once upon a time watched them over and over and over and over…) will enjoy seeing all of the cute and often clever parallels that she folded into her story.

Connor and Isabelle are likable characters, and it’s not a hardship to root for them to find their way to an HEA together. The premise requires one heck of a suspension of belief, though, and Isabelle is a tad bit on the immature side, but still, I had fun with this one.

I’ll be crossing my fingers that Ms Holloway has more fairytale retellings in store for us; even if she doesn’t I’ll definitely be giving her future books a glance!

Rating: 4 stars / B+

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.

Published in4 starsB+Book reviewsnew releasespotlight