Lisa Jensen, Beast

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This free event will take place in Bookshop Santa Cruz. Chairs are usually set up for open seating about an hour before the event start time.

They say Château Beaumont is cursed. Servant-girl Lucie can’t believe such foolishness about handsome Jean-Loup, Chevalier de Beaumont, master of the estate. But the chevalier’s cruelty is revealed, and Lucie vows to see him suffer. A wisewoman grants her wish with a spell that transforms Jean-Loup into terrifying Beast, reflecting the monster he is inside.

But Beast is nothing like the chevalier. Jean-Loup would never tend his roses so patiently, attempt poetry, or express remorse for the wrong done to Lucie. Gradually, Lucie comes to realize that Beast is an entirely separate creature, with a heart more human than Jean-Loup’s ever was.

Lucie dares to hope that noble Beast has permanently replaced cruel Jean-Loup — until an innocent beauty arrives at the chateau with the power to break the spell.

Filled with gorgeous writing, magic and fierce emotion, Beast: A Tale of Love and Revenge will challenge all you think you know about good and evil, and beauty and beastliness.

“When is beauty shaped by ugliness? When does a simple fairy tale give way to the dark textures beneath its surface? When Lisa Jensen takes it on, that’s when.  Beast: A Tale of Love and Revenge is a love story, and so much more.” — Laurie R. King, New York Times bestselling author of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice and Island Of the Mad

Lisa Jensen is the author of the adult novels Alias Hook and The Witch From the Sea. A longtime film critic with Good Times, her reviews are also posted on Rotten Tomatoes. She lives in Santa Cruz,with her husband, artist James Aschbacher.