Review: Captive Beauty

Captive Beauty by Natasha Knight
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love Beauty and the Beast retellings, be they fantasy or contemporary. I also love dark romances. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to hear Natasha Knight’s Captive Beauty was screaming at me from the moment my eyes fell upon the synopsis.

I’ll be honest, despite my excitement a part of me was worried. I love dark romances, but often find the books are nowhere near as dark as I would like them to be. Fortunately, Captive Beauty delivered the darkness. I have no wish to jinx myself, but it seems I’m stumbling upon quite a few authors capable of writing truly dark romances as of late and I’m loving this current trend in my reading.

Although Captive Beauty is very clearly a dark romance I was surprised in many ways. There was plenty of darkness to be found throughout the story – in terms of the characters and the events that played out – yet it managed to be dark without going into overly graphic detail. Compared to some of the books I have read, the details in this one was rather tame. That is not a bad thing at all, it was simply surprising. Some of the content in this book would have been touched upon in more graphic detail in other dark romances I have read, and it was refreshing to be aware of the details without things being overly graphic. I’m not saying it is without graphic detail – there is plenty throughout the story – it simply wasn’t to the level of some dark romances, and I liked it more than I thought I could like such an approach.

I think it is safe to say this is one of my favourite dark romances. I was captivated from the very first page, addicted to the story. I was turning page after page, unable to put the book down until I knew how everything would come together. The characters were wonderful, the interaction between them great to watch, the storyline was gripping, and the way everything developed throughout kept me hooked. As I mentioned, it was two of my favourite things put together – Beauty and the Beast and a dark romance – and I positively loved the outcome.

Without a doubt, I’ll be picking up more Natasha Knight in the future!

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