I think I always start a Beauty and the Beast inspired fairytale retelling book review by saying how much I love Beauty and the Beast so this one is no different: I REALLY love beauty and the beast! And I LOVED the correlated scenes reimagining in this book - in fact, I don’t think the scenes this author choose are usually this obvious in other B&B retellings so it was a breath of fresh air!

I must confess, it took me a good while to like Wren - for some reason characters like her do annoy me, this “too cool for school” bravado it’s a bookish pet peeve of mine. However, I wanted to give her a chance as I found Boreas to be a mysterious and interesting character. I’m glad it pay out for I was waiting for this moment where you could really see the real Wren and when that moment came, I loved her and what made her true essence. Their relationship also blossoms from a slow enemies to allies to friends to lovers and the pacing for it all was very very good! The slow burn was very well developed and you see them grow and bring the best of each other out.

This book also has some very strong Hades x Persephone inspired traits that I felt complimented it so so well and although I strongly think B&B and HxP are very different, the way it was intertwined made such a good retelling! I love that this was a standalone and the writing was quite charming and made me want to read more! I am quite excited to see what’s next for this author and what’s next in the series (of what I believe standalones interconnected)

If you are a fan of A Deal with the Elf King by Elise Kova or ACOTAR by Sarah J Maas, I do think you’ll enjoy The North Wind a lot!