As Old as Time (A Twisted Tale)

As Old as Time is a novel based on the animated film, Beauty and the Beast and is the third entry the A Twisted Tale series by author Liz Braswell.

Summary[]

"What if Belle’s mother cursed the Beast?

Belle is a lot of things: smart, resourceful, restless. She longs to escape her poor provincial town for good. She wants to explore the world, despite her father’s reluctance to leave their little cottage in case Belle’s mother returns—a mother she barely remembers. Belle also happens to be the captive of a terrifying, angry beast. And that is her primary concern.

But Belle touches the Beast’s enchanted rose, intriguing images flood her mind—images of the mother she believed she would never see again. Stranger still, she sees that her mother is none other than the beautiful Enchantress who cursed the Beast, his castle, and all its inhabitants. Shocked and confused, Belle and the Beast must work together to unravel a dark mystery about their families that is twenty-one years in the making."

Plot[]

The story has two different perspectives - How Belle's father met her mother, and Belle's perspective.

Belle got in contact with the Rose, the enchantress. and she figured out the Beast's past and that the enchantress who cursed Prince Adam, was her own mother.

In the end, Belle's mother is weakened so much that she can either revert the servants to their human forms or make the Beast human alone. The Beast urges to let the servants be free, and he'll remain in his current state. She does so, and the Beast recruits some other wizards to help with his enchantment. Belle joins him on his voyage.

New Characters[]

Alaric Potts: Mrs. Potts' husband and the father of Chip. He worked as a stable master at the castle and later helped Belle's parents smuggle Les Charmantes out of France until he was murdered by Frederic.
The King and Queen: The Beast's parents, who saw magic and unnatural people as a threat to their domain.
Adelise: A faun who attended Belle's christening.
Bernard: An ogre who attended Belle's christening.
Frederic D'Arque: former best friend of Maurice but alas he went mad with self-loathing and conducted sinister tests on other magical beings filling notebooks and sample jars with sickening research and "trophies" his first "success" story was himself by lobotomizing himself and removing chunks of his own brain he rid himself of his ability to see the future but at the cost of his sense of right and wrong.

Trivia[]

The book is told from Belle, the Enchantress, Maurice, and the Beast's perspectives, respectively.
The following characters are given more background:
- Rosalind: Maurice's wife, Belle's mother, and the enchantress who cursed the Beast and the castle. She was captured and locked in an asylum for over a decade before she was finally freed.
- Monsieur Lévi: A bookshop owner. He had a friendship with Rosalind. When the dark times for magical creatures (and people with unnatural appearances and behavior) began, Lévi relocated to a small village out in the country to protect himself.
- Frédéric D'Arque: A magically gifted young man who saw magic as a curse and wanted nothing to do with it. He sought to become a surgeon, but his parents sent him to the faraway kingdom where he could be around 'his people', to his dismay. He was also named Belle's godfather.
The animated objects are said to have no faces, and one can only see their mood by watching their movements.
Cinderella was mentioned.