Review to come!

<blockquote><b><i>“You fought and fought to keep all the cruelty locked up in your head, and for what? None of them ever loved you, because none of them ever knew you.”</i></b></blockquote> Rosamund Hodge is officially one of my favorite authors ever. I just love her writing so much! It's beautiful, dark, imaginative and fresh, even if this is her debut novel. Although very good, this book was not as amazing as Crimson Bound for me, but I enjoyed it just as much and it got me out of one of my worse reading slumps. You can see this is the author's debut novel because there are a few loose ends in the story, like elements that were brought up at the beginning to have no use whatsoever in the story or being offered an explanation for them, but honestly I found I didn't mind at all at the end. Cruel Beauty is a fairytale retelling of the Beauty & the Beast with elements from Rumpeltiltiskin and Blue Beard and some new elements, making the story refreshing and seemingly new, but with nods to the original stories that makes it recognizable. It's also darker and gritty. Our main character, Nyx, is not a typical heroin, although this is the role she is thrusted into. She resents the fact that she was chosen to kill the Gentle Lord instead of her sister, she resents her father for not loving her and for the bargain he made, resents her mother for dying and leaving her to fulfill this task, resents her sister for being loved and having the privilege of being sweet and carefree while she is to be strong and focused and burdened with this task she didn't asked for. Nyx is deeply resentful, dark, jealous and sometimes even cruel, but that's what makes her character so great. And in Ignifex she finds someone who loves her not because he expect something out of her, or wants her to be something she isn't. He loves her for cruel heart and her darker thoughts. Hodge has a knack for writing these complex, grey-area characters in a way that they are human and relatable. I also loved the world building and the mythology surrounding this world, that takes something from Greek Mythology and even some other pagan mythologies. Yes, it has some flaws, because like I said some things are left unexplained, but it didn't take from my enjoyment of the book and it's not essential to the plot. A 5 stars book without a doubt and I can't wait to pick up Hodge's next novels.