Heather Rose Jones The Language Of RosesThe Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones is a short retelling of beauty and the beast with an aromantic lead who plays the role of a sort of spectator and catalyst in the story, rather than the romantic lead one expects. This is a retelling you have never experienced before.

Alys is the eldest daughter of a merchant. Her duties were always to care for there two younger sisters and her father when her etherial mother up and left them all when Alys was seven. Her role has always been to ensure that everyone else is happy and she experiences a kind of fulfilment from that role.

So when her father returns home after foolishly plucking a rose from a magical estate and tells her that she must pay the price for his mistake by agreeing to live with a beast and a woman made of stone, she bravely does her duty. She is expected to allow the beast to court her with the hope that she will love him one day.

But how can she love a beast or anyone really when she has never felt the kind of passion one expects from romantic love?

She discovers that the beast, a once handsome man named Philippe, and his sister, Grace, the stone woman, are both magical beings under a curse and Alys may be the last hope of undoing the curse. But no matter how much they try, Alys just isn’t romantically inclined.

As secrets are revealed like a slowly opening rose, Alys learns how the curse was made, how her own life is intertwined with Grace’s and that of Grace’s beloved Eglantine.

And Alys learns what it means to read The Language of Roses.

I Was Hesitant

How do you write a retelling of Beauty and the Beast without the romance? And how do you do a sapphic retelling when the beast is a man? These were two big questions I had coming into the story.

I knew to put my trust in Jones, though. Her mastery of story weaving and detail is incredible and so I took a chance on this little book about an aromantic heroine put into a situation where love is the key to everything.

But Then This Happened

As I began to read the story I was first sucked in by the beautiful world Jones created. Everything has a plushness with an underlying fragility. Every page was a new exploration into a complicated set of characters and a world where magic felt so real I could practically smell the roses.

I loved every moment.

I was enthralled by Alys and slowly unravelling the mystery of what had happened to cause them to be cursed in the first place.

Who Should Read It?

sheena's favouriteFantasy lovers who enjoy lyrical storytelling and are not looking for a romance will love this book. It’s short but exquisite.

And for those who demand a happy ever after, Jones leaves the ending a little wide without setting up what happens next. However we do get the sense that the women live a happy life filled with the kinds of love they all need.

While there isn’t a romantic plot for Alys, there is love in this book. It’s just not as overt as romance.

If you are always searching for that elusive read, that different and compelling story then this is a good one to add to your collection.

Excerpt from The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones

She came to the briar that grew beside the gate as if her steps had taken her there by chance. Or as if her only task there was to direct the invisible ones to grease the hinges of the gate. She had neglected that once, long ago. Now it was a habit, out of penance, like the habit of caution in her steps. The rose twisted up from gnarled roots, stretching thorny branches out toward the gaps between the iron bars. Here and there on the brambles, leaves trembled in the breeze seeking the hidden sun. A tiny cluster of buds swelled at the tip of one branch.

Grace reached out to cup stiff fingers around that promise and breathed a kiss of warm air across it. She looked anxiously over her shoulder at the upper windows of the manor. They still showed shuttered against the light. Philippe didn’t care for light in the morning even if he woke this early. She turned back to the briar. She had no skill to work with matter. That was Philippe’s domain: the transformations, forcing one thing to another. She had only the invisible ones. But here was no need for transformation. The bloom would come on its own.

“What is it?” she asked the rose softly. “What message wakes you?”

The buds swelled between her hands, cracking the petals apart. At first there was a cluster of small white blooms, seeded with red at the center. A tremor fluttered through her heart. Hopeful news. A hint of one last chance. She had never entirely lost hope, but it was furled tightly within, like the petals in a swelling bud. Like a river that rushed and tumbled under a skin of ice. She had grown a hard skin long before Peronelle’s curse had touched her. Eglantine had coaxed her to dare to bloom that summer, but it was followed by thirty long years back in a habit of stone. Stone kept that bud of hope safe from Philippe’s suspicions—not hope for herself, but for what she held most dear.

Grace breathed across the central bud once more and it unfurled, scattering the petals of the smaller blooms across the ground. The flower struggled to open halfway, then just enough more to show the colors within. A broad white simple rose, streaked with purple at its heart. There was no mistaking the sign. “It has been long and long since you sent that message,” she said.

She hadn’t counted all the failed chances. The last time—that had gone badly indeed. But any change brought…no, she would not name it ‘hope’ even now. Curiosity. That was the safe thing to call it.

“Thank you,” she whispered and brushed her lips across the petals. She could no longer feel their soft touch, but the kiss wasn’t for her. In response, a deep crimson blush suffused the bloom before fading to pale shell-pink. “And I, too,” she told the rose. “I, too.”

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Bits and Bobs

ISBN number: 9781734360363

Publisher: Queen of Swords Press

Heather Rose Jones Online

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