20 upcoming YA books we can’t wait to read in 2020
By Lacy Baugher
IT'S HEEEEEREEEEE!!! The cover and excerpt for Of Curses and Kisses, my Beauty and the Beast retelling/boarding school novel!! https://t.co/efXNnGdFkc
— Sandhya/Lily Menon is not really here (@smenonbooks) July 31, 2019
Of Curses and Kisses – Sandhya Menon
This contemporary retelling of Beauty and the Beast from the bestselling author of When Dimple Met Rishi looks exactly like the sweet, fluffy tale we’ll need to cozy up with this winter.
Of Curses and Kisses is the first novel in a brand new series set in an elite international boarding school. At St. Rosetta’s Academy, Princess Jaya Rao is the heiress to an old Indian kingdom and determined to take revenge on an old enemy of her family’s – English aristocracy Grey Emerson -who happens to be her classmate.
Their family’s generations-long feud goes back to the days of British colonialism, and definitely seems to involve the red ruby Jaya wears, which may or may not have placed some sort of curse on Grey. As the two inevitably fall for one another – this is Beauty and the Beast, after all – much drama, both in and out of school, ensues.
The official description has more details.
"For Princess Jaya Rao, nothing is more important than family. When the loathsome Emerson clan steps up their centuries-old feud to target Jaya’s little sister, nothing will keep Jaya from exacting her revenge. Then Jaya finds out she’ll be attending the same elite boarding school as Grey Emerson, and it feels like the opportunity of a lifetime. She knows what she must do: Make Grey fall in love with her and break his heart. But much to Jaya’s annoyance, Grey’s brooding demeanor and lupine blue eyes have drawn her in. There’s simply no way she and her sworn enemy could find their fairy-tale ending…right? His Lordship Grey Emerson is a misanthrope. Thanks to an ancient curse by a Rao matriarch, Grey knows he’s doomed once he turns eighteen. Sequestered away in the mountains at St. Rosetta’s International Academy, he’s lived an isolated existence—until Jaya Rao bursts into his life, but he can’t shake the feeling that she’s hiding something. Something that might just have to do with the rose-shaped ruby pendant around her neck… As the stars conspire to keep them apart, Jaya and Grey grapple with questions of love, loyalty, and whether it’s possible to write your own happy ending."
Of Curses and Kisses is available on February 18.