3.5 stars

This is a dark retelling of Beauty and The Beast but with a curse and social media twist.
That is where my problem lies, it is heavily embedded into the story but is highly superficial. In fact, most of the plots in this book are. It seems like a mess at the best of times and just leaves you wondering the point of anything.

This is a world where Social Media is ran by crystals. Yup, crystal. Garnets, aquamarines, diamonds, etc. Beyond that I couldn't make sense of what this world really is. The crystals are mentioned but never explained, so what exactly is this world? Supernatural? Magic infused? Part of another series of RZ?

Alana, the new heir to Aquarius Social, presents herself to the world as a vapid influencer but she is more than that. She is the power behind the company as she charges the crystals to keep the servers going. She also takes it upon herself to be an online vigilante of sorts. She helps women in bad situations but after Thorn comes into play none of that even matters anymore. She doesn't even stop to think about what she was doing to help people.

Thorn, the owner of Malice Media, is literally the opposite of Alana. While Alana helps women in need, he kills the men who create the problems no problem. No one knows what he looks like and he likes it that way. However, he is obsessed with Alana and that means that he enters her world of video posting and has to put himself out to the public. He kidnaps her and threatens sexual punishments every time she disobeys and follows through with it but she tries to keep her company going and suddenly it's a problem? There is even one scene with a knife that is just crazy and I understand the kink but it just didn't work here.

Alana in inexperienced and I feel like Thorn is too much for her intro into those things. She fights him along the way and he simply says no and she claims to hate it yet she submits to him no problems. Their chemistry seems forced and it just doesn't work for me. I much preferred the secondary characters to the main 2 and they are the only way I will continue on with this series in hopes of better writing.

I will admit, I hate to have said that because I am a HUGE fan of Rebecca Zanetti but this just didn't cut it for me.
Also, this is 100% a "me" problem but I can't get passed some of the names, I know this is a Grimm retelling but all I picture is Disney and talking furniture.

Title: One Cursed Rose
Author: Rebecca Zanetti
Genre: Romance | Fantasy
Tags: Beauty and the Beast retelling | mafia-esque | dark romance | stalker romance | mystery | thriller | magic system
TWs: stalking | kidnapping | torture | bdsm

This novel was touted as a must-read for fans of Scarlett St. Clair and Sara J. Maas, yet I found myself missing the resemblance. I do feel a little misled into reading this because of that. However, diving into this dark, mafia-esque romance, I found it to be a captivating introduction to a genre I hadn't explored before.

My initial attraction to the book stemmed from its premise as a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. While the darker aspects of the narrative took me by surprise, I found myself engrossed nonetheless. This reimagining is a very unique and interesting take on Beauty and the Beast.

One Cursed Rose takes place in an alternate version of Silicon Valley where there are four elite families that own nearly all social media. They gain power, money, longevity, and health through their affinity with various crystals that are integrated into their social media servers. Engagement with the social media platforms helps power the crystals. Alana is the heir to Aquarius Social and Thorn runs Malice Media. Thorn’s crystals, and by extension his body, have been infected with an unknown computer virus and there is a race to find a cure to save his life.

I found the world-building very intriguing, but I would have liked for a deeper exploration of the mechanics behind the system, particularly as it played a critical role in the story’s resolution.

I found the relationship between Alana and Thorn only partially believable. It was believable that Thorn would fall in love with Alana, but not the other way around. Thorn continuously learns things about Alana that make him authentically fall in love with her, but Alana’s love for Thorn seems more automatic without any clear reasons.

In One Cursed Rose something is always happening. There is plenty of action and mystery to keep readers engaged throughout. I feel there was a good balance between the plot and the spice; there is definitely a lot going on in the plot. I didn’t want to put the book down and was able to read it in one day.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who likes dark romance.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is an intriguing story that seems to be a combination of romance and fantasy elements. It’s very intriguing how the world in this book has companies and corporations that they get power through social media. Alana is trying to help save her families company when her father decides to marry her off to a competitor, in order to shore up there, business. She’s not happy but her father‘s plans are derailed Wen thorn who is the head of the rival corporation that is putting Alana‘s families company out of business decides that he wants her. Alana is a character that you for because she is strong and determined. Thorn is dark and doesn’t seem to have any emotions but he is enthralled with Alana and will do anything to have her. This is a new world and I’m very excited to read this book because the setting just adds to the ambience of the romance. I’m looking forward to more stories in this world.

3.5 Stars

Kidnapped by her rival, Alana Rose Beaumont has been watched by Thorn Beathach for a very long time... and now, she is finally his...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One Cursed Rose immerses the reader in a world where social media dominates society, and the four strongest, most elite families, rule it all. Alana may hide her brilliant mind behind her social media persona, but Thorn recognizes just how rare of a jewel she is... and that he wants to possess her, most of all...

This dark romance was a scorching, BDSM romance read! Alana is captured by a man who she should fear, but with every lesson he teaches her, she falls more and more under his spell. But while Thorn becomes a commanding presence in her life, they must face a race against time to save him... from freezing from the inside out...

There were so many great elements to this book, and the plot was weaved together well with many suspenseful and mysterious threads. I really enjoyed the dark and twisted love story and Thorn's intense obsession with Alana that fueled it all. This story introduced many ideas in a fantasy world, with health and wealth tied to precious gemstones that power social media companies and their owners. And while some plot details worked better than others, I felt that the story sometimes focused too much on the fantastical elements, and not the bigger picture, like lurking enemies, or the secrets waiting to be revealed. But in the end, the story wrapped up nicely and left room for the series to continue and grow.

I received a complimentary copy of this book for my honest and unbiased review.

-Dark Romance
-Magic
-Mafia/Gangs
-Billionaires
-Kidnapped/Forced Proximity
-Touch Her and You Die
-Beauty and Beast Retelling
-Crystal Magic Systems
-Kink Exploration

I was super excited for this romance, as it was advertised for fans of Scarlett St Clair. It could not be further from what she writes and how she writes her books.
I will start off by saying I did not like the male main character. There is no chemistry between them, and he has no character traits other than being beefy and brutish and speaking Gaelic every other page to amp up the attractiveness. The romance between them was also not fun to read because it was insta-lust, and it felt like there were no feelings involved until there suddenly was.
The sex felt misplaced for me. The MMC threatened her with a spanking (which she instantly was aroused by), literally less than ten minutes after he’d killed a teenage waiter that was trying to protect her from harm, and then he’d kidnapped her. She had no idea who he was, yet was getting all hot between the thighs at the idea of getting spanked by her violent, ruthless kidnapper who showed no mercy to basically a college student age kid. Does she have molasses for brains? Don’t even call it Stockholm syndrome, because they hadn’t even been with each other for an hour at this point in the book. She’d never met him. The sex was too kinky for a girl that didn’t know her kidnapper and had conflicted feelings about him on every other page. The crystal magic system had no detail either.

Thank you to NetGalley and Edelweiss for the ARC!

I volunteered to read and review an advanced readers copy of One Cursed Rose through Net Galley. I enjoyed reading this story so much . It's an interesting and entertaining suspense romance . A unique twist on Beauty and the Beast . I found this story action packed and Suspenseful . The characters and the story is so different than anything I've read in a good way . So much goes on in this story . It's dark and dangerous. I highly recommend taking the time to read .

I enjoyed this book. I’m a sucker for retellings. Beauty and the Beast are one of my favorite love stories. This book was a dark retelling with suspense, fantasy, magical elements, romance. It is a love story with SPICE. I like the romance between Alana and Thorn. This story is a uniquely modern Beauty and the Beast.

Well that was a pleasant surprise. A little darker than what I am used to from Rebecca, but I quite enjoyed it.
The magic element took a little longer for me to understand but like any good math question, when I figured it out? It was worth.

In this dark and erotic retelling of the Beauty and the Beast tale, social Media princess, Alana Beaumont, is now the heir apparent after losing her brother in what seems at first to be an accident. Her father's company, Aquarius Social, is one of four ruling family's who get their power from precious stones as well as interaction online with billions of followers. Alana is told by her father that she will marry another family’s odious son as Aquarius Social is in trouble needing to shore up power. When someone attempts to harm Alana, she is saved by the reclusive rival Thorn Beathach, who is know as the Beast for his appearance as well as the brutal tactics in the near war between the four ruthless and the seriously moral lacking families.

Once in Thorn’s secret castle, Alana does her best not only to escape but learn all her captor’s secrets. Thorn tells Alana from the outset that she is his to keep giving her strict rules to follow that come with punishments for infractions. Those penalties are of the S/M Fifty Shades kind which is all new to the virginal Alana. Alana is vital to her company because she “charges” the gems that keep it running. Thorn has been physically afflicted by an enemy; his time is running out to find the perpetrator and the cure before it takes him out.

This story, the first one in the Grimm Bargains series, is much darker with violence, brutality, and eroticism than other of the author’s fantasy romance books. The next one looks to be a take on the Cinderella story focusing on Ella, one of Alana’s close friends and an internet hacker stepdaughter shunned from another of the dominant families. I usually enjoy Ms. Zanetti’s writing and am a fan of her other works; however, this one was too dark and too much sexual exploration in the land of kink for me. The setup for the world building is somewhat hard to follow as well.

Loved the main character and the idea but I had a hard time following the themes of social media / platforms / tech. Otherwise I really liked it, just definitely might have needed a bit more "follow-able" plot for me :)

One Ccursed Rose by Rebecca Zanetti is a dark and twisted reimagining of Beauty and the Beast. I am all for fairy tale retellings, but not so much for dark mafia romance so this was going to be an interesting challenge of a read and to be fair, I was intrigued. Is dark mafia my jam? No, does it work in this context? Kinda. Is it better to spearate it if you are not into Dark Mafia and enjoy it as a really well-written retelling? By eckers yes!

This retalling is absolutely brilliant. The character dynamics are strong, the dialogue equally so. The plot flows naturally and oh my, well, oof, keep a glass of water to the side to cool off!

The Urban/ Paranormal Fantasy vibe is definitely where I found my pace in reading One Cursed Rose and it works so very, very well.Unique, original, shimmering, angsty, morally grey and oh my crikey the slow burn is fire!

Thank you to Netgalley, Kensington Books and the amazing author Rebecca Zanetti for this fantastic ARC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own

I’d like to say Thank you to Rebecca Zanetti and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review One Cursed Rose!

I was very intrigued by the idea of a dark retelling of Beauty And The Beast. (“Tale as old as time” right ?! ) This one was very unique. I really enjoyed the fantasy element added to the story and the murder and mystery added to it made it thrilling.

I do wish that the magic of the crystals had been a little bit more elaborate. I would have liked to see that mapped out a little more. But the social media aspect was very interesting.

I think dark romance , mafia , fantasy , billionaire , and mystery is a lot of themes happening at one time. It made the plot points a little thin in some places. I wish that there was more back story of the crystals. I would’ve liked some kind of fated mate story line.

Overall I did enjoy it. It has lots of dark spicy scenes and plenty of twists and turns!

One Cursed Rose is different from the other books by Rebecca Zanetti that I have read. It is a dark retelling of Beauty and the Beast with Mafia ties. I liked her unique take on the story; she blends fairy tale elements with computer science, crystals, and magic with hints of Camelot. There are four prominent social media families. Alana is the heir of the media giant Aquarius Social. Her father wants her to marry a revival media family to combine their empires to help take down the company run by Thorn Beathach. Thorne has other plans for Alana. He needs her to help save his company. Even though they are enemies, Alana can't fight her attraction to Thorne, and he can't let her go. Word of caution: this is not your typical Rebecca Zanetti book. The romance gets very dark, and Thorne has a strong possessive quality. I loved her take on this classic story and can't wait for the next book in this series. I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion. A big thank you to Rebecca Zanetti, Kensington Books, and NetGalley. #OneCursedRose #NetGalley

I loved the Dark Protectors series, so when I saw that the author is writing a dark fairy tale series, I couldn't wait to read this! Thorn is truly a beast with dark urges, but he also uses his power for good. The four competing social media giants have discovered that the more followers they can attract, the more that energy powers their crystals. Thorn has never shown his face in the media, but when his obsession Alana, heiress to her family's media company is almost kidnapped, he rescues her... only to keep her captive himself.
In a world with so much competition for power, Alana's father plans to marry her off to forge an alliance, but she's kidnapped by Thorn before that can happen. Is it Stockholm syndrome or is the attraction she feels to this frustrating man real? And will the discover the cure to his curse before he's taken from her forever?
I've read several Beauty and the Beast retellings but this one was truly unique. The use of magic crystals and social media made the story more modern. Thorn was truly the dark hero you hate to love and Alana was perfect for him. There are so many great side characters in this story that I can't wait to catch up with in the next books!
Thanks to Kensington Books through Netgalley for the advance copy of this book. The opinions in this review are my own and given voluntarily.

✰⋆☾ ⋆ One Cursed Rose ⭑☽ ✧˖°. R. Zanetti ✰


🕮 Romantasy
🕮 Beauty and the Beast retelling
🕮 Enemies to lovers
🕮 Magic
🕮 Touch her and die
🕮 Dark Romance
🕮 Murder mystery
🕮 🌶🌶🌶/🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶


Really liked this retelling of Beauty and the Beast, It was beautifully written and LOVED the spice! ♡
Was a bit of a slow read though as I was confused in the beginning and had no idea what was happening. 🙈

I'm sorry to say that this is my least favorite Rebecca Zanetti story that I have read. It is a fantasy, in a world in which four families with an affinity with gems, which gives them power and long life, rule the world. It is a dark world. The families are ruthless, like mafias. In the modern world they spread their power with the use of the internet and social media. Someone has poisoned Thorn, the head of Malice Media, by setting a virus into their server and his body parts are freezing. He has become obsessed with Alana Beaumont, heir of Aquarius Social, stalking her to keep her safe and kidnapping her when an attempt is made on her life. He is a bully, but just being near her warms him. I do not care that he was abused and kidnapped himself when he was a child, there is no excuse for his sadistic behavior to her or her response to it. I do not care to read sadistic/masochistic relationship. So basically the story is about finding who poisoned Thorn and a cure, who killed Alana's brother and Thorn teaching Alana to be submissive, when that is not her nature. She is more spunk than submissive but she has come to love him.

Nevertheless, the story is engaging, fast paced and a page turner. Like most of the author's books, the villain was the last person that you would suspect. It wasn't until I got to the author's Acknowledgements, that I found out this was suppose to be a dark Beauty and the Beast. I hadn't caught that. Oops. OK, so I now see it in a different light, but still do not like their dark relationship.

I read a gifted advanced readers copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.com. This is my honest, unbiased and voluntary review.

A massive thank you to Netgalley, Kensington Books and Rebecca Zanetti for the chance to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

WOW. What a book! I absolutely LOVED it! I raced through it, but I also didn't want it to end.

When I read the synopsis for One Cursed Rose, I instantly wanted to read it. A dark retelling of Beauty and the Beast? Yes please!
It was everything I wanted it to be and more.

Rebecca has an addictive writing style that grabs you immediately and doesn't let go. I loved everything about it: The magic, the romance, the characters and the storyline.

Alana and Thorn were magnetic and their chemistry was off the charts.
I loved their friends and family too, especially Justice, Ella, Scarlett and Quinlan. I found Stacia intriguing too. I'm hoping this is just the start of an epic dark romance series. 🤞 I definitely need more.

I highly recommend.

5 well deserved stars from me. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
(I'd give more stars if I could)

This book was a challenge for me to get through. I have read numerous books by Rebecca but I feel that this dark Beauty and the Beast retelling just wasn't done well. The writing in the first third of the book was elementary and hard to read through. I couldn't believe this was the same author who had written the deep ops series. The sentence structure was really basic, didn't flow in a way that seemed to convey a story. Instead it felt like bullet points to just get to the next section. The way the author chose to describe Thorn's Synesthesia was also extremely confusing.

What tipped it over the edge for me were the names of several characters. Yes it is a beauty and the beast retelling but please do not use names from the actual Disney Movie - The FMC's dad is named Maurice, her brother is Gast, the MMC's friend is named Coggsworth and his "housekeeper/estate manager" is Mrs. Pottsdam.

The storyline with the crystals and the four families and the way their social media companies was also confusing. The way the social media companies were driven by emotions, time, memories etc just didn't seem to meld cohesively for me.

The last 2/3 of the book seemed more in a writing style of what I would expect from Rebecca and it became easier to read. I did find myself just reading quickly to get to the end to see what would happen.

It also became clear that the author plans a Cinderella retelling with one of the characters - but it's also so close to the fairytale that it is cringeworthy for me. The woman's name is Ella and she has two step sisters and a step mom who have taken over her family company and kicked her out.

Overall it was a decent story but I won't be continuing the series or recommending it to friends.

“One Cursed Rose,” by Rebecca Zanetti

I really liked this book. I liked the magic through crystals powered by social media which is unique and modern. It gave me less of a regular fantasy book but more magical realism. The book was well paced and had so many tropes and characters that I really liked. I cannot wait until the second book comes out. 4 out of 5 stars.

-Dark Romance
-Magic
-Mafia/Gangs
-Billionaires
-Kidnapped/Forced Proximity
-Touch Her and You Die
-Beauty and Beast Retelling

Thank you for the ARC!

Ok, I'm totally intrigued! I don't think I've read anything like this before. This is a beauty and the beast retelling with a very unique twist to it. It's a bit mysterious with the crystals and why some families have an affinity to certain stones. It seems there is great power with the stones, but a lot is unknown in this first book. I enjoyed the main characters. Thorne was obsessed and I like that he took what he wanted. He's dark but I a good kind of dark. Alana is more than what she shows to others. She strong and smart. I liked them together. I'm very interested to see where this series will go. This was a great first in the series!