Rebel Rose: The Queen's Council Book Review
Book Name: Rebel Rose
Author Name: Emma Theriault
Genre: Fantasy
Release Date: November 10, 2020
Number of Pages: 352 pages
Review:
The spell is broken and now Belle and the Beast, going by the name Lio, have begun their life together. One of the things they must do is meet with the King of France to restore the ties between them. But when Belle and Lio arrive a revolution starts, with Belle witnessing a riot firsthand. Belle and Lio return home in hopes of stopping the revolution from spreading into their kingdom. Lio’s cousin, Bastien, accompanies them and proposes the kingdom cut all ties with France. This would lead Belle and Lio to become King and Queen. Though unsure, Lio accepts, while Belle declines the position. After the ceremony, Bastien urges Lio to spend time with the kingdom’s nobles while Belle believes the best path for their kingdom is to listen and help the commoners.
With enough convincing, Lio does what Bastien says leaving Belle to work with the king’s assembly to take care of day-to-day duties. But Bastien and the assembly go against Belle at every turn. Then the enchantress who cured Lio returns, revealing that the kingdom could be destroyed, and Belle is the only one to stop it. Will Belle find the courage to stand up at take her rightful title as Queen? Or will her kingdom go up in flames? Find out in Disney’s The Queen’s Council book one: Rebel Rose.
As a huge fan of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast seeing a continuation of the story is wonderful. I love how Belle feels she is not the right person to take the title princess, then eventually queen. She also learns how to trust her feelings and stand her ground. As a commoner before the curse, she sees differently than everyone around her and she tries to show that to everyone. I loved reading about her verbal battles with Bastien and reading about how she seemed so unsure about things. It made me love Belle as a character even more.
I liked how the enchantress was woven back into the narrative and how the author made her into a character that will most likely be used in future installments of the Queens Council books. Also, the book did have me wondering if the character Bastien was good or bad throughout the story, but I think the author needed to give some more backstory on him. This could easily be fixed by having Belle use the magic mirror, which was established to still exist, to see why Bastien was the way he was. The mirror is shown in this story to see the future, so why not the past?
I wish Lio had more page time as the original Beauty and the Beast animated movie is as much his movie as it is Belle’s. Maybe they could have thrown in a few more interactions between Belle and Lio. Lastly, I loved that Belle found a friend in a new character named Margaret. It was great to have Belle interact with another girl who had tons in common with her. Overall Rebel Rose is a good read and I give this book four out of five stars.
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