The Beautiful was a book I was really looking forward to and I’m so sad that I was disappointed.

The writing style is beautiful and reminds me of Lani Taylor but just wasn’t exactly what I wanted but I can recognise how beautiful and lyrical it is!

My other big issue was that it was kind of boring? Like the vampires weren’t in it until a long way though and the rest of it I just found boring. Was looking for a new love that could take over how much I still love Twilight but unfortunately I didn’t get that.

I did end up quite enjoying The Beautiful. Let's face it, mix in some scary vamps with a sexy forbidden romance and how bad can it be? Still, there were a number of issues that prevented me from loving it. But it is a book for teens, and after nine years on Goodreads I'm somewhat less of a teen than I was when I started. So I don't feel like being too harsh.

It's 1872 and Celine Rousseau has just arrived in New Orleans, fleeing her life in Paris and a dark secret. She is taken in by a convent and lives with six other girls until the nuns can find a "suitable match" for her. If you've ever been to the French Quarter of New Orleans, you will know the intoxicating otherworldly vibe the city gives off-- and it is undoubtedly the perfect place for a supernatural murder mystery. Which is exactly what Celine soon finds herself caught up in.

Bodies drained of blood begin to appear, and Celine can't help but believe it is all linked to the mysterious La Cour des Lions-- an underground society made up of those with special abilities. The leader is the equally mysterious Sébastien Saint Germain, who Celine can't seem to get out of her mind. Thrills abound!

One of the major issues I had was that I have no idea why this book is set in the 1870s. Nothing is done with the historical aspect, and all the atmosphere of the novel comes from New Orleans itself and could have been achieved just as easily with a modern setting. The jarring anachronisms made it really difficult to believe this was 150 years ago. Celine herself thinks and talks like a modern girl who has time travelled back to the 19th century, and the early mentions of the sexism and racism of the time seem to have no real bearing on the story. La Cour des Lions appears to treat men and women, people of colour, and LGBTQ people equally.

Why bother even having it be a historical novel?

There's also so much repetition. And not all of it is convincing. Take Bastien. The first time Celine compared Bastien to the devil, it was quite sexy. By the fiftieth time, I was so sick of hearing him referred to as "the devil", "Lucifer", or "devilish". Not only was it tiring to read, but after a while I found myself wondering just what Bastien had done to earn such a moniker. He's so baaddd, apparently, but he spends most of the book being nothing more than a mild-mannered young guy who smirks a lot.

The other repetition was about Celine's "inner creature" and, my god, I was getting serious Fifty Shades of Grey "inner goddess" flashbacks.

Also, also, why is the lead police detective basically a teenager? And a gorgeous one at that? Actually, I know the answer. It's so we can have some kind of faux-love triangle in the next book, isn't it? And I say "faux" because who actually wants her to be with Michael??

Sexiness + vampires, though. I've never been able to resist that combo. I'll be back to see how this goes. That almost-sex scene was promising.

Awww man. I read that synopsis and I was GAME.
I liked it, it was ok. Maybe I'm just too old for it? I didn't get much if any sense of it being historical?
I think I would of adored it if I was still 19.
But I'm a sook for ya fantasy and on the most part I loves them I do.
Maybe me and Renee are just not meant to be. I've tried all her books but I don't get the hype. I think its me.

It took me a while to get into The Beautiful, but once I did I was hooked. Can you believe that vampires have finally made a comeback in 2019? (Also, peep that lowkey Twilight reference towards the end.)

I feel like I've connected to Celine so much as a character because she's fearless, but she's also very human. Also, I fell for Bastien the moment he was introduced and I'm not at all ashamed of that. The slow burn goodness was amazing and I cannot wait for more. Like, I seriously need the sequel ASAP.

Delightfully seductive, filled with darkness and intrigue. This is not some teen vampire novel. It’s fine wine, high fashion & delicious food. It’s deadly games played in the shadows.
It’s intoxicating storytelling filled with girls with cores of steel and men too beautiful for their own good.
I couldn’t recommend it enough.

4.25* - Overall I really enjoyed it, especially once I got into it. I don’t know why, I can’t really pin point anything specific but the start just didn’t flow particularly well for me.

The story was set in New Orleans and had a murder mystery feel and had characters from all over the world being represented. Being a Yorkshire gal it was great to see a character from this region. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before! There was plenty of intrigue around the characters and plot too which helped keep those pages turning.

My main disappointment for me was that it’s being badged as a huge vampire novel but I didn’t really get it until later on. Yeah there was vampires in the world but I was really expecting them to be more prominent from the start. Initially it seemed as if the Beautiful were just people with special abilities.

Being a mystery novel, ofc I had lots of questions throughout about who exactly were the fallen and the brotherhood. What was their animosity with each other? How did Michael fit in? Who was the murderer and was their motive? It was interesting reading their POV but not knowing who they were. I certainly didn’t guess who the culprit was. All questions were pretty much answered by the end which was great but I think I would’ve liked to have seen some of those matters brought to light a little bit earlier.

I loved that there was some ‘romance’ but it wasn’t over the top. It was very much more sultry than romantic which was a welcome change. I really liked the MC because she was courageous and always torn between being proper and submitting to her darker side.

I wasn’t quite sure I understood what that epilogue was about but I’m VERY keen to continue the series whenever that may be.

Okay I give up.
DNF at 30%.

I wanted to love this, I really, really did. I almost think the third person really didn't work in this book, I feel like I didn't get a sense of who Celine was atall. I think this may have worked better if she had been narrating.
I can barely even comment on Bastiens character because by 30% we still barely knew him.

I just wanted this book to excite me but instead I was finding reading it just a massive chore.
The world is well written but that's about it for positivity, sorry!

Hii bookworms!! I’m insanely thrilled to be writing out this post: the first of my September reads! ⁣
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I want to thank @reneeahdieh and Hodders and Stoughton @hodderscape for allowing me to possess the ARC! ⁣
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THE BEAUTIFUL BY RENÉE AHDIEH⁣
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𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗟𝗟 𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚: 5/5 STARS⁣
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𝗙𝗔𝗩𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗘 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦: Pippa, Odette, Sebastièn (even if his jaw is always clenched) and the heroine Celine. ⁣
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𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗧 𝗙𝗔𝗩𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗘 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦: I’m not listing my least favourites yet because I don’t want to give away the plot! ⁣
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𝗙𝗔𝗩𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗘 𝗔𝗦𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗦: I love that Renee Ahdieh is bringing back Vampires to YA literature. The wonderful aspect about this particular vampire book, is that it doesn’t give into the clichés but does remain almost nostalgic to the vampire-lore. ⁣
The characters are compelling; if any of you have read The Wrath and The Dawn, then you can definitely pull out similarities in the main female characters of both. The empowered woman that Renee Ahdieh crafts is realistic more than anything else. They have their ups and downs, their morals are tested, their feminism is tested. The humanisation of the characters is what makes this fantasy story so intriguing to read.⁣
The plot will leave you unhinged; the ending will leave you destroyed and craving more. It will make you want to wish you could erase your own memory just for the chance to read this book again. ⁣
One of my favourite aspects, just in terms of writing, is how lyrical and lush the imagery is in ‘The Beautiful.’ This story is going to leave you hungry in so many different ways I promise. The writing is transformative and powerful in its ability to bring you into Celine’s story and experience her life with her. ⁣
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𝗦𝗛𝗜𝗣𝗦: Celine and Bastien. I love when a ship is equally matched. A possible secondary ship that shall not be named but I did see an inkling of it! ⁣
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𝗥𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗗 𝗙𝗢𝗥: a reader who loves, vampires, romance, luscious descriptions and political intrigue.

A lush, dark vampire romance set in New Orleans, this book has a lot of promise but falls short in key places as its characters seem a little under-drawn. I really loved Celine, the main character of the story, and Pippa, her best friend, but I was disappointed in how underdeveloped the rest of the cast was, especially the two main love interests, Sebastien and Michael. They both seem like dramatic, handsome, successful lads but ye gods are they tedious. Michael in particular doesn't actually seem to do much beyond give Celine a room to escape from. I liked his grandma, though.

I was also disappointed with the lack of development given to the Court of Lions, the gang of vampires that surrounded Sebastien, especially Odette, who had a lot of potential but never seemed to have the opportunity to develop her character beyond 'is a lesbian' and 'likes to wear trousers'.

Anyway, characterization aside, I thought that there was a lot of potential in this book, and some absolutely lovely descriptive passages (I can tell Ahdieh has great love for New Orleans, it shines through wonderfully and made me want to visit). I didn't hate it, and I think if I was a young teenager coming off the Anne Rice novels that Ahdieh says in her afterword were her inspiration, I would have loved it. I just feel a little cheated on the character front.

I have been a huge fan of Ahdieh's writing ever since I first found my way into her books. Both her previous series; The Wrath and the Dawn and The Flame in the Mist are favourites of mine, so I was ridiculously excited to get accepted for a review copy of this from the publisher via Netgalley.

Celine Rousseau is a woman on the run from her past, believing she can find a new life in New Orleans she makes the perilous journey with the hope of starting afresh in a new city. Two chance meetings will change her life forever, and not altogether for the better.

One thing Ahdieh knows how to do best is create a world so rich and magical that you get dragged into the pages of the book, experiencing the story right alongside her incredibly strong, resilient and lovable characters, so much so that you feel as if you yourself are part of this mysterious world. This book was no different. I was swept away to New Orleans, smelling the Beignet's from the bakery's on the corner, and experiencing the wonders of carnival season, her descriptive skills are amazing and I couldn't get enough of reading her interpretation of the dress styles, etiquette and beliefs of the time.

Celine's story was one I had a true pleasure in following. The epitome of a heroine; strong, loyal and more than able to hold her own in a world run by men. I loved her interactions with Bastien, neither willing to back down especially in regards to the safety of their friends. Though we get introduced to a multitude of characters they all bring their own special something to the book and my favourite side character would have to be Odette. The first person to introduce Celine to the Court of Lions, she was equally witty and resilient. I enjoyed seeing the friendship between these two bloom, and couldn't get enough of their scenes together.

With this being a book by Ahdieh, there was, as is to be expected, a heavy reliance on romance, although I feel this was slightly less 'full on' then in some of the other books. The romance only truly picks up towards the end of the book, before that the conversations between Celine and Bastien were some of my favourite interactions in the book. At the start they are both unsure how to take the other, and its only after a few meetings that they begin to relax in each others presence. Both believe they would be bad for each other, aware that their pasts might inevitably catch up with them. I felt this was quite a fresh take on the overused 'good girl saves the bad boy.' Both of the characters need redemption in their own ways, and it might be that they can only achieve that together.

As well as Celine's POV, we have a second narrator, the 'demon' seemingly responsible for the attacks in New Orleans. There are plenty of options for who this person could be, but I did not expect that! A true plot twist that hit me from out of nowhere. I had my suspicions throughout the book, but none hit the mark. I had to re-read the few lines again to make sure I had read them correctly, and even then I couldn't truly believe it. Let me tell you it definitely left me wanting more and eagerly awaiting the next book.

This book was a 4.5 for me! Ahdieh created a rich magical world that I couldn't get enough of, my one down point was I didn't FEEL the romance like I had in her other books. However, this was a small part of the book in consideration, and It did not effect my overall enjoyment. Perfect for fans of Stalking Jack the Ripper who are looking to add a bit of magic to their reading.

A big thank you, first of all, to the publishers for approving me for Ahdieh's novel as an ARC.

I appreciate the world Ahdieh is trying to build and this sort of urban fantasy (albeit set in the 1840s) is the sort of genre I normally levitate towards when it comes to fantasy, however I do feel like this type of story would have been so much better would the supernatural elements not have been there. It could have been a really good YA thriller/whodunnit without any supernatural elements (maybe "some is magic real" or just folklore would have been a way to insert some supernatural intrigue into the plot without it being fully head-on supernatural) but as a YA fantasy it just sort off ... falls flat (at least for me) both story-wise and character-wise. There's not much to the characters more than that they are good looking...

Something Ahdieh did manage to do is setting: I as a reader understood from the start where the story was set and how the characters happened to be there, and establishing the setting can be difficult, especially in fantasy stories. I had a hard time getting the whole, what I would call, instalove/instaattracting storyline, as I feel that did nothing for the overall storyline with Celine. She barely knows this man and suddenly she tells him her most intimate secrets like they are nothing? The romantic elements could have been deleted and the story would still have been interesting enough to read with the whole murder mystery and the, although I did not enjoy them that much, the supernatural elements and the town of New Orleans itself..

All in all, this book wasn't for me, sadly, I wish it could've been as the blurb sounded amazing.