Everywhere you look, you see this book described as Bridgerton meets Once Upon a Broken Heart and Beauty and the Beast. If I were to calculate the degree of influence each of the three inspirational sources had on it, I would say that it is:

45% Bridgerton

40% OUABH

15% B&B.

I am, naturally, speaking thematically. Not the actual proportions of on-page time allocated to each source of inspiration, but the global influence each has on the plot of Death’s Rose.

Each of these has a well-defined narrative demarcation, that makes it feel like braiding two thick cords and one thin thread to create a beautifully solid rope. Bridgerton and OUABH are the cords, and B&B is the bright silk thread that enlivens and adds colour to the braided rope but doesn’t really add to its constitution. Meaning, Death’s Rose isn’t a book that can be judged as a Beauty and the Beast retelling (which it isn’t), but it can definitely be assessed by how it incorporates the key element of the fairy tale that it has borrowed—the curse and its origins—into a story that’s pretty much its own whilst still drawing heavily from two major non-fairy tale sources.

Many books that borrow only elements or scenes from the fairy tale end up using them as purely aesthetic props, decorative in nature. Not so this book; it makes the B&B element part of its moving machinery, and therein lies its strength.

VISITING THE INIQUITY OF THE FATHERS UPON THE CHILDREN

Death’s Rose is a hybrid: a Regency-tinged Fantasy that borrows the curse and its structural consequences from B&B and uses them as the engine for Bridgerton-type social intrigues and its quest narrative in the style of OUABH.

Rather than a retelling of the tale, it’s a book that has the good sense to understand the true narrative effect of the B&B curse and to take advantage of it. The result is more like a tugboat pulling an aircraft carrier: the B&B element is small, but if it were removed, the ship is left adrift. Without the curse, Death’s Rose is just another Regency social comedy running parallel to a portal-style Fantasy with side quests; competent, perhaps, but without a structure to call remarkable, nothing to distinguish it from many others like it. The curse is what makes everything else necessary, urgent, and meaningful.

Here I must exercise some caution, because this is the first book in a series, and the full story of the curse has not yet been revealed because there are missing details. What we learn in this first book is that Caius (the Beast figure) has lived imprisoned in a shifting library for years, transforming into a raven whenever his magic overwhelms him, because a powerful immortal cursed him. And why would she curse him? Not for anything Caius has done, but for something an ancestor of his had done.

In other words, a descendant doesn’t pay for his own sins, but for the sins (if you can call them that) of someone who came before him, someone who offended the powerful immortal for reasons only he could’ve had. This curse is a dynastic punishment for a personal rejection, and its victim had no influence whatsoever on the situation being avenged.

I couldn’t help but notice the echo this evokes of Madame de Villeneuve’s original Beauty and the Beast. In Villeneuve’s tale, the Beast’s curse comes from a fairy who groomed the prince since childhood and cursed him when he rejected her advances upon reaching adolescence, attributing his refusal to his finding her “ugly” rather than acknowledge the predatory nature of her behaviour. In both cases, a powerful woman punishes someone who had no say in the situation: in Villeneuve, a boy who can’t be expected to love the one who groomed him, and in Death’s Rose, a young man who wasn’t even born when the offence occurred.

I should add that R.I. Aryn is an author who writes with considerable meticulousness and likes to shroud this complex plot in secrecy, so the second book could very well complicate or recontextualise what we know about the immortal and her motives. But the way this book ends, the origin of the curse is unsettling, and of course, I couldn’t overlook the most uncomfortable element of the book; but it’s worth noting that “uncomfortable” in a fairy tale isn’t a flaw.

What the book does handle well is the mechanism of justice in the terms of the curse. The “don’t touch” rule, which dictates that Elvira, as the one destined to break the curse alongside Caius, will also suffer its effects if they come into contact (or fall in love), is elegantly symmetrical, although this detail is extracted from OUABH rather than B&B. This binds both parties equally to what’s at stake and generates genuine tension without seeming arbitrary. That’s excellent work with curses, even if the origins of the curse remains morally ambiguous.

CRUEL BIRDS, RAVENS, BUT WISE

The second best-developed element is, in a word, Caius. He is the kind of Beast who reveals himself subtly, not through grand displays of vulnerability but through his evasiveness, the precision of his cruelty, and the moments when both crack just enough to show what lies beneath.

His inner world emerges gradually and unfolds little by little, because he is so secretive and drives you mad with his bad habit of not answering questions. Years imprisoned in a library, losing himself to magic and transforming into a raven until the moon shines again in the sky, is a quietly devastating existence, and the book allows you to feel its weight without letting Caius wallow in self-pity. He is too cunning for self-pity, which makes the moments when his shell cracks all the more impactful.

The dynamic between him and Elvira is immediately established as one of equals in wit, if not power, and their dialogues are brimming with chemistry.

“Is this the monstrous beast you spoke of? If you don’t break your curse, you turn into a raven for eternity?” When he only stared at her, she released a long sigh and shrugged. “Well. That isn’t so bad.”

Elvira’s refusal to be intimidated by what he is, and his obvious readjustment in response, says everything about who these two are and why their dynamic works.

From there, a slow and well-deserved transformation unfolds, from caution to something far more dangerous, achieved almost entirely through hints and implication. The romantic subplot is slow-burn and handled with admirable restraint for a book that treads on ground that doesn’t exactly reward moderation (we all know the YA tendency to exaggerate sexual tension and insta-love).

The revelation that Caius was born with uncontrollable magic, and that Elvira is the counterbalance whose presence stabilises what he can’t control alone, is the most interesting structural decision in the book. It reinterprets the Beast’s “monstrosity” not as a moral failing, but as a kind of overwhelming abundance he never asked for. It’s a significant update of the archetype.

EVERY LITTLE ROSE HAS A THORNE

As for Elvira Thorne, she is a complete heroine, and in a genre saturated with heroines described as extraordinary but passive, that’s no small feat. She acts. She negotiates. She makes decisions with her eyes wide open and faces the consequences. When she asks Caius to help her win the prince of her dreams or when she asks him to fake-court her to help in her social débutante plans, she plays by her own rules, refusing to be manipulated by anyone, not even Caius.

Her power, or rather the lack thereof, because she was born without Aetheris (personal magic), is the ability to balance Caius’s overwhelming magic, and this isn’t a decorative but something that emerges organically throughout the plot and recontextualises her relationship with him. She is neither passive nor “rescued.” She is the solution to a problem that has existed for generations.

And yet, there’s a recurring theme of unjustified self-loathing that runs through her story that is frustrating. Elvira sees herself as a dull wallflower, invisible next to her stunning sister, and this belief influences how she navigates the book’s social world in ways that aren’t always true to the character we see. The Elvira that negotiates with a sharp tongue, that shrugs off a curse that transforms a man into a bird, that exchanges a kiss with astonishing serenity . . . that Elvira doesn’t seem to me to truly believe she’s insignificant. The gap between how she sees herself and how she actually is in action is more frustrating than touching.

However, this isn’t without precedent in the tradition of Beauty & Beast. The Beauty of the original fairy tale is also partly defined in relation to her sisters: she’s modest and introspective compared to their vanity and social ambition. Elvira’s self-perception reflects this dynamic, though the book doesn’t always convince us that it’s justified. Whether the ambiguity of this plot translates into genuine development, as it promises so far, or remains an unjustified character trait is something the next book will have to resolve.

Interestingly, her twin sister Aurelia functions less as a counterpoint and more as a subtle counterweight: the exchange in which she confronts Elvira’s self-criticism is one of the most emotional moments in the book, and suggests that the dynamic between sisters has much more to offer than has been explored so far.

What is Elvira’s character arc really about, beyond dazzling in ballrooms to snag her prince, and her quest for five Arcana cards?

Essentially, it’s a fable about what’s at stake in love in a world where love has already failed catastrophically. The Saints’ warning—”love is not dangerous when it triumphs, but all too often it fails”—is the book’s implicit theme, hovering over every interaction between Elvira and Caius like a second curse. The Malady that slowly consumes Elvira, Caius’s uncontrollable magic, the immortal who will return if both curses remain intact, it all converges on the same question: what is the cost of loving, and what price does the world pay when love is defeated?

OF QUESTS AND OTHER MAGICAL INCONVENIENCES

Another point worth highlighting is the structure of the quest to find the five Arcana cards needed to break the curse: five trials inspired by fairy tale archetypes (“Hansel and Gretel,” the Golden Apple Tree, Wonderland, the Seven-League Boots, and others less recognisable if you’re not very familiar with fairy tales), which I find very ingenious and well-implemented; I’d even say better written than the social subplot. Each trial has its own internal logic and contributes to the worldbuilding without feeling like a simple to-do list. The Saints, doomed to be lost and forgotten, are a particularly melancholic invention; they carry the weight of history in their warnings to Elvira and foreshadow future complications.

The influence of OUABH is most evident here, in the sense of a magical world with its own political history and moral consequences, where the main characters become entangled in something much larger than their personal stories. The influence of Bridgerton lies in the social structure: the balls, the rumours, the careful management of appearances, the class dynamics, which the book handles with such ingenuity that even I, who am not a fan of Regency settings whether historical or Fantasy, can read without getting stuck. Furthermore, the author handles the transitions from one setting to another well; her prose has a deliberate quality, as if she controls its effects, which makes the reading smooth even when the plot structure becomes uneven. However, she does use cliffhangers in a way that will leave you shaking your fist in the air at specific moments.

In conclusion, it was a pleasant surprise that it turned out to be a book that understands the true effect of the Beauty and the Beast curse, borrows it with precision, and uses it to build a much broader and more ambitious story. I think this makes Death’s Rose a case study in how fairy tale elements can be integrated rather than be simple embellishments.