My Cultural Diet

Lyssa Cadogan has devoted her life to hunting down fairies and their horrible creatures, all in the hopes of one day slaying the Beast that killed her brother when they were children. The Beast remains elusive, however, much to Lyssa’s frustration. But when she’s hired by Alderic, a foppish noble who claims he can lead her to the Beast, Lyssa might finally get her revenge. That is, if dark secrets from both her and Alderic’s past don’t undermine her efforts. Serra Swift’s debut novel is billed as a cross between The Witcher and Howl’s Moving Castle, which is certainly an interesting notion. (It’s also a deconstruction of a famous fairy tale, but I’ll let you guess which one.) Kill the Beast leans far more heavily towards the former, though, thanks mainly to a grim protagonist whose all-consuming desire for revenge blinds her to everything else and leaves her near-petulant at times — which can make it difficult to care or see her as the bad-ass monster hunter she’s meant to be. That said, Swift’s world-building is quite intriguing; the novel’s quasi-steampunk setting feels much like our world but with just enough difference to keep things interesting.

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