What a beautiful story, simple and with so much meaning. I liked it, and the author made a great description of the world Belle lived in, with a nice visual description that transported me in the middle of the story. I really enjoyed it. ( )

2.5 stars
For my full, non-spoiler review: https://christianlovingbooks.blogspot.com/2020/02/belle-review.html ( )

Two people, practically strangers, get married for different but mutually beneficial reasons, then must learn how to live with each other, understand, listen to, and trust one another, and eventually find friendship, love, and home. It has all the best kind of character development that I love about Beauty and the Beast retellings! ( )

I really like fairy tales, but I was intrigued to learn Sarah Price wrote a series combining fairy tales with the Amish culture. I hope Ms. Price had just as much fun writing this as I did reading it. ( )

I give inspirational romance a lot of crap, especially the Amish ones because they so often tend to be formulaic, boring, and preachy, but I will admit... I kinda dug this one! Honestly! When my friend told me there were Amish fairy tale spin offs I laughed. It sounded so dumb, bizarre even! So I went into this book expecting it to be awful, and admittedly I didn't fall in love with it right away, but once I got into the story, I was hooked. Belle lives with her father and two useless sisters. When they find out that they are going to lose the farm because their father hasn't been paying the mortgage all hope seems gone; they will be destitute and homeless. The town recluse, Adam, a man disfigured from a fire, buys up the farm and Belle tries to plead with him to save their home. He tells her the only way he'll let her family have the farm back is if she agrees to marry him and bear him a child. Against her better judgement she does, because she loves her family and wants the best for them. She knows nothing about this man, other than what her little Amish community has gossiped about him and his beast-like looks. Can they make this marriage work? Can she tame the beast and save her family? Cheesy, but super readable. I'll be reading the next in the series!