THE BEAUTIFUL ONES | Silvia Moreno-Garcia
PUBLISHING DATE: 27 April
Six words, folks.
SLOW BURN. MAGICAL REALISM. REGENCY ROMANCE.
Like, I feel like I could leave the review at that. I won’t. But I could.
This book is beautiful. Loisail, the fictional city where the majority of this story takes place, is sparkling and lush, and the characters that fill its streets are intriguing. I just love Nina, in particular. Sometimes it can annoy me when authors are like - "she's not like other girls... she likes bugs!" but Moreno-Garcia has done a fantastic job of making Nina incredibly well-rounded and likeable.
The Beautiful Ones tells of nineteen year old Antonina Beaulieu ("Nina"), who is spending the Season in Loisail with her cousin and his wife, Valérie. Here, Nina meets Hector Auvray, a stage performer gifted with telekinesis - just like Nina. Except, for Nina, it's not a gift. It constantly gets her in trouble, making her the topic of ridicule. Hector doesn't think that way. As her friend, he tutors Nina, helping her to understand and to learn the extent of her abilities - but Hector has a secret, and Valerie has a secret, and Nina is caught in the middle, the romance of her dreams threatened before it even has a chance to bloom.
Oh, the angst! It's delicious!
I will be honest, here - I don't usually go in for love triangles. For the most part, I find them rote and boring, and can be an easy way for an author to introduce some element of external conflict instead of internal emotional conflict. But, oh boy. You want external conflict? You want internal emotional conflict? The Beautiful Ones delivers in spades. Silvia Moreno-Garcia has written the novel from the point of view of three separate characters, so you get three times the emotional turmoil. Don't let that deter you - it has made for a richness of story that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. In fact, I couldn't put it down, and carried it around with me for the two days it took me to read it. I woke up early to read this book!!! I had to know how it ended!!! It was stressing me out!!!
If you like your romance with a little bit of magic, you will love The Beautiful Ones. It's a stunning story about how love is, quite literally, magically life-altering.
Thank you to NetGalley and to Quercus Books for providing me with this ARC.
