Joanna Shupe
The Gilded Rose
What if Belle married Gaston first?
I received an advance reading copy of The Gilded Rose through NetGalley.
Joanna Shupe takes that question to Gilded Age Manhattan, where Caroline marries Orson Grey, the man everyone else thinks she’s lucky to have. In public, he’s charming. At home, he controls more and more of her life until even her love of rare books feels like something she has to give up.
Then someone offers her a job cataloguing a private library. Enter Zane Bishop, a wealthy recluse with a collection worth getting lost in. He’s been living out of the public eye since an explosion left him disfigured. Caroline comes for the books, and the two begin to trust each other. Zane has his own reasons to know what Orson is capable of.
The library is doing a lot of work here
A private library is already a persuasive argument for a romance. Here, it gives Caroline somewhere to go and something to do that belongs to her. She walks into Zane’s house with knowledge he needs. There’s an intimacy in that setup even before either of them has anything to confess. Imagine spending your days talking about the thing you love with someone who’s genuinely interested in what you have to say, after being made to feel that your interests were a nuisance.
That’s the part of the fairy-tale reversal that gives this premise its bite. Orson’s good reputation helps him keep his cruelty private. Zane, the man society has already decided what to make of, gives Caroline room to be good at something she loves. The library gives their friendship time to become its own reason to keep coming back.
Make room on the nightstand
Put The Gilded Rose on your list if you like historical romance with a friends-to-lovers arc, a reclusive hero, and a fairy-tale retelling that takes its heroine’s circumstances seriously. And if your favorite part of Beauty and the Beast was always the library, well. Here, Belle gets to put her hands on every book.