Mountains Made of Glass is the first book in Scarlett St. Clair’s newest series, Fairy Tale Retelling. As the series title lets you know, it is all about fairy tales but with Ms. St. Clair’s spin on them. In this first book, she tackles Beauty and the Beast.
Ms. St. Clair does not just retell the tale as old as time. In Mountains Made of Glass, she also plays around with the story of Rumpelstiltskin. And she doesn’t stop there. Showcasing her love of all things mythical and fantastic, you will also see Slavic and Irish creatures appear throughout the story. When Ms. St. Clair retells a fairy tale, she makes it uniquely hers.
The essential Beauty and the Beast story remains intact in Mountains Made of Glass. A young woman must stay in the mansion of the Beast until he releases her. There are no talking teapots, but we do have a magic mirror and a delightfully snarky brownie named Naeve. The Beast has to make the girl fall in love with him to break a curse. Yada, yada, yada.
The changes Ms. St. Clair brings to the tale add a layer of complexity to this simple tale. For one, the Beast in Mountains Made of Glass is an elven prince. Except, one could make the argument that the Beast could also be the heroine, Gesela. Both are fiery, fiercely independent, easily angered, and downright nasty around other humans. Both are beautiful, and both are beastly. More importantly, they both need something from the other to escape their individual curses.
It wouldn’t be a novel by Scarlett St. Clair if it weren’t spicy, and here too, Ms. St. Clair does not disappoint. In fact, I think she has a lot of fun torturing her two characters in that regard, as both are too proud to cede any iota of control to the other. What I appreciate the most, however, is not the sensual torture but the fact that no matter how desperate they are to have at each other, they both take the time to obtain consent. It’s a little thing, but it means so much in the battle against rape culture.
At 219 pages, Mountains Made of Glass is a fast and fun read. I found it particularly fun to see the changes Ms. St. Clair wrought in this famous tale while maintaining some of the humor from the Beast learning what it is to be human and feel something other than anger. After whipping through this first book and thoroughly enjoying myself, I look forward to seeing what other fairy tales Ms. St. Clair plans to retell in this series.