Mountains Made of Glass by Scarlett St. Clair is a dark fairy tale retelling for adults. It begins as a retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" but deviates from the traditional story enough that you quickly forget it’s a retelling at all. Gesela lives on the edge of the Enchanted Forest, furthest out from the rest of the village. Her village, being so close to the Enchanted Forest, is constantly being cursed by one magical being or another. For every curse the village has, a villager is chosen to break it. This time it is Gesela’s turn -- but only because she refuses to marry the sheriff. For that, she is tossed to the bottom of the village’s dry well in order to find a solution.
At the bottom of the well she meets a toad who helps her find her way back to the surface. However, when they get out of the well all the toad wants is to hop right back in. No matter how hard she tries to keep him out of the well he hops back towards it. In the struggle to keep him out of the well she kills the toad and quickly finds out he wasn’t a toad at all but instead a cursed Elven prince. His brothers quickly come to seek revenge and decide to exile her to live with their other cursed brother known as the Beast. He tells her that she can either live out her sentence with him and then be free or she can be free sooner by guessing his true name in seven days. What he doesn’t tell her is that she must guess his true name and say it with love for them both to be free.
My favorite part of this book was the world. Gesela spends little time in the human world before she is transported to the world that they call Fairyland. If you loved reading books about fairies as a child, you’ll probably love reading about the world in this book. It was reminiscent of a lot a fairylands in children’s stories but darker with more adult themes. St. Clair describes the world with beautiful imagery that will fully immerse a reader whether they are familiar with fairy lore or not.
If you are someone who enjoys Celtic fairy lore and romance novels, you will probably enjoy this book simply for the references to creatures you’d find in Celtic lore. Fans of romance and folklore horror will get even more out of the story. It is also a great book if you are looking for a quick read since it is just a little over 200 pages. The audiobook is available on Overdrive/Libby, but you can also check out the eBook on Hoopla Digital. |
