Review--Kill the Beast by Serra Swift

 

The Witcher meets Howl’s Moving Castle in this debut original faerie tale of revenge, redemption, and friendship―for fans of T. Kingfisher, Naomi Novik, and cozy fantasy with a dash of gritty adventure.

The night Lyssa Cadogan's brother was murdered by a faerie-made monster known as the Beast, she made him a promise: she would find a way to destroy the immortal creature and avenge his death. For thirteen years, she has been hunting faeries and the abominations they created. But in all that time, the one Beast she is most desperate to find has never resurfaced.

Until she meets Alderic Casimir de Laurent, a melodramatic dandy with a coin purse bigger than his brain. Somehow, he has found the monster’s lair, and―even more surprising―retrieved one of its claws. A claw Lyssa needs in order to forge a sword that can kill the Beast.

When the witch Ragnhild decrees that Alderic and Lyssa must gather the other ingredients to forge the weapon together, or else the spell will fail, Lyssa gets more than she bargained for. Alderic is ill-equipped for the task at hand, and almost guaranteed to get himself killed.

But as the two of them search for the materials that will be the Beast's undoing, Alderic reveals hidden depths: dark secrets that he guards as carefully as Lyssa guards hers. Before long, and against Lyssa's better judgment, they begin to forge a blooming friendship―one that will either lead to the culmination of Lyssa's quest for vengeance, or spell doom for them both.

Serra Swift's debut, Kill the Beast, was a remarkable fantasy read that just the right amount of faerie and fairy tale like essence. I say this, because despite that familiar title name, this is not a fairy tale retelling, but more of a fantasy read that blends in familiar fairy tale tropes mixed in with good old fashioned fantasy style storytelling. 

For the past thirteen years, Lyssa has been trying to hunt down the faerie beast that killed her brother when she was young. In the meantime, she is happy to kill any other faerie creature that plagues upon humanity. She travels between faerie worlds and the mortal ones on the regular and has made a contented life for herself. Not a happy one, not a miserable one. Just one where she is existing...existing to find and kill that beast. 

Then one day, she receives a letter from a rich fellow named Alderic, who wants her help in killing a faerie monster that has been terrorizing his homeland. While she debates about meeting the man, fate takes the choice away from her when she runs into him at a bar where he's getting drunk as a skunk. He then offers her untold riches if she helps him to kill a beast that has been terrorizing his land. Naturally, it becomes clear that this beast and the one that killed her brother are one and the same. So, Lyssa is loathe to admit wanting to take up this dandy's offer, but she does because it's a chance to fulfill her oath she made to her brother's memory and to rake in a lot of cash too.

I feel like at its heart, this story was about friendship and forgiveness. Oh there was plenty of adventure and magic and faerie creatures that were evil and wreaking havoc. Lots of good action scenes and sleuthing. For with the help of her companions, Lyssa learns that she needs items of great importance that will be challenging to obtain that when worked together in the proper magical way they can create a weapon strong enough to kill the infamous beast. And along the way, other thing happens...of course.

Honestly, from the get-go, I had a theory of what was going to take place in this story and I was tickled with delight to find out that my theories were correct. There was still plenty more to learn and see transpire over the course of the tale, but there's always a kind of delight to have your first page theories pan out! Lol.

While not heavy on the fairy tale retelling what with a "beast" involved that needs to be killed, there were aspects that seemed to resonate with the fairy tale theme. We have curses, we have fae creatures, we have fae creatures setting curses upon humans. All things we are familiar with that tend to happen in the original fairy tales. So this story had that going for it, of course. Shockingly, though, there was little to no romance. I felt like the bond that was forming between Alderic and Lyssa bordered more on friendship than anything romantic like. It was kind of refreshing in some aspect, but I guess I've become too much of a romantic at heart these days and I was hoping for maybe a little more. Granted, there were moments between them that felt like they bordered something along the romance lines...but at the same time, I just didn't get too many romantic vibes from this story. Still completely enjoyable of course, but something I feel like needs to be noted. As I question why Goodreads throwing in the tag "romantasy" on this one as I did not get that vibe at all!

Now fair warning, as it's on the cover. Lyssa does have a faithful and adorable doggy companion! He's been her "sidekick" you could say, for years. Since she travels between the fae worlds and our mortal one, he's definitely lived past the normal age for a big dog. Now, I will say there was a scene where he gets injured, but the dog lives in this one! I don't know if you want to call it a spoiler, but I know animal lovers or even sort of animal lovers like myself--long story--don't like enduring animal violence or deaths. But when the adventure starts to get too dangerous, Lyssa takes her dog back to her companions to watch over him while she finishes her quest and we do see him again before the story ends. So yes, the dog lives and is perfectly happy! And despite the scene where said dog gets hurt, Lyssa exacts proper vengeance for her faithful companion, so all is very well.

All in all, I will say that Kill the Beast was a surprising story on many counts. It wasn't quite the fantasy read I was expecting, but it was the one I was anticipating after starting. Sure, I would've like maybe a little more romantic vibes, spice isn't necessary really, but just maybe some deeper connections would've been nice. At the same time though, I deeply value friendship and I enjoyed seeing the hardened Lyssa grow closer with someone and solidified a new friendship of sorts over the course of the story. Since this was a standalone, the ending was satisfactory if maybe a little cheesy in some ways, but still satisfactory. Swift is definitely an author I will be keeping an eye on as this was quite a refreshing fantasy that kept me entertained over the long weekend!

Overall Rating 4/5 stars