-Book Review - A Beauty So Cruel by Beena Khan -

 

Title: A Beauty So Cruel (Beauty & The Beast #1)

Author: Beena Khan

Rating: ★★★ 3.5

Genre: Mafia Romance 

Blurb: 

I was a beauty, a stray orphan who witnessed a murder and the beast took me as his hostage.

Once upon a time...
A Don by the name of Vlad Vitalli ruled New York.

He's a mafia man. The leader of one of the five ruling families, La Cosa Nostra. He's a monster. A trained killer and a cold-blooded murderer. 

He's tall, mysterious, with icy gray eyes, and he rarely smiles. He's a criminal. Ruthless, cold, dangerous, and he is going to kill me.

I was the wrong person at the wrong time. 

An innocent at the masquerade ball but I witnessed a murder. I become a target to the mafia who have a rule of no witnesses left behind.

To save my life, I made a deal with the ruthless beast. I handed myself to the cruelest man in the kingdom.

Just as Don Vlad was about to order the hit, I threw off my masquerade mask, revealing my face, and offered myself to him.

One look and I was doomed. He took me as his hostage. His captive. He didn't know by taking me, Dahlia Hadid, he sealed his own fate.

Welcome to New York's Underworld. 
Loosely based on the fairytale.

** Thank you to the author for the review copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions in this review are my own.**

Review: 

Beauty and the beast, but make it mafia? That’s exactly what Beena Khan did with A Beauty So Cruel. 

Vlad Vitalli is the Don of the New York Italian mafia, and Dahlia happens upon him at the wrong time and place and winds up becoming his captive and their story only evolves from there. 

I liked the premise of this story with the Mafia spin on a Beauty and the Beast reimagining, and throughout the story you can definitely pick up little mentions of Beauty and the Beast, which I liked. With Beauty and the Beast being a childhood favorite of mine I have always liked reading about retelling or reimagining's of this story, which A Beauty So Cruel is loosely based off of, I also enjoyed the bits about the mafia world but I would have liked to see more of this part. The story is mostly based on the relationship between Vlad and Dahlia. 

As for the main characters Vlad and Dahlia, this is where I had a hard time connecting to the story. I never really felt myself being truly connected to either of the main characters, and I also had a disconnect with the writing as well, but I did enjoy most of the overall story and it was easy to read and also a fast read once I got past the first couple of chapters. 

Overall I liked the idea of the story and I was interested in that part, but I just had a disconnect with the writing and the main characters.