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A few years ago I picked up a copy of Robin McKinley’s Rose Daughter at a used bookstore for a dollar. I had read a little McKinley way back in the ‘90s and didn’t remember much; I had also reread The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword more recently (still like, 10 or 15 years ago at this point) and had liked them a lot, so I’d bought the copy when it presented itself to me. Then it sat on my shelf for a few years.
I’m on a little bit of a fairy tales kick mentally right now because of Dimension 20 Neverafter, which has some cool things I really like and some things I think are not working, so during the episodes I keep finding myself eyeing the various fairy and folk tales collections and retellings and such on my shelves instead of watching the screen. I’m doing Grimm for my yearlong read, so I didn’t really just want to also read any of my Lang Colored Fairy Books at the same time; hence, I figured it was finally the correct time for Rose Daughter.
Rose Daughter is McKinley’s second retelling of Beauty and the Beast, published 20 years after Beauty. As is unsurprising given the title, this one is mostly about roses. This version of Beauty is an inveterate gardener, always running away from her governesses to muck about in the dirt when the family was wealthy. After their ruin, Beauty, her two sisters, and their ailing father move into the one piece of property left to them, a mysterious, ramshackle house out in the countryside called Rose Cottage.
Roses, in this universe, are pretty rare, and essentially require magic to grow–either sorcery, or better yet, a magical amount of love (the mechanics of this are a little unclear but it works beautifully in-story. A hard magic system it is not). When they arrive, Rose Cottage is surrounded by ill-tempered thorny bushes that Beauty has never seen before, and which turn do turn out to be roses, which only bloom once Beauty arrives to reinvigorate them–the townsfolk say they haven’t bloomed in many years, and only grow when a greenwitch is living there. When Beauty is eventually fated to go live with the Beast in his big creepy magic castle (and it is deliciously creepy), her task there is clearly to rescue the dying rosebushes in the big glasshouse in the middle of the castle grounds. This project eventually exposes all the shenanigans regarding the Beast’s backstory, Rose Cottage’s backstory, Beauty’s mom’s backstory, why the town Rose Cottage is in doesn’t have any resident sorcerers or magicians, and generally rights a multigenerational wrong in a tidy and satisfying way.
One thing that is fun about this version is that Beauty’s two sisters, Lionheart and Jeweltongue, each have their own personalities and character arcs, and the three of them all have very close, warm sisterly relationships despite being very different from each other. This bucks a traditional fairy tale trend that when there are three siblings, only the youngest one whomst is the story’s hero ever is even a decent human being. Instead, in this novel, we get a full family drama of everyone learning coping skills and discovering new talents and generally finding inner strength in the face of serious life challenges and all that good stuff. Even the father, once he begins recovering from the strain of his mental breakdown and the loss of his business, discovers a previously unknown talent for poetry, makes some friends, and eases up a little on his aversion to magic.
Another thing that is fun about this version is, and this is a spoiler: It avoids the “Your reward for loving someone gross is you don’t have to love someone gross!” (Zac Oyama, Adventuring Party) problem. Beauty is given a choice of returning the Beast to his former handsome form and wealth and influence, and instead decides that they’re just going to live their own little life in Rose Cottage and grow roses and that’ll be enough. So that’s nice and pastoral.
The one thing I did not love about this story is that it made me feel bad about my black thumb and general laziness and dislike of gardening. I keep buying cheap potted plants from Market Basket and can’t be arsed to figure out if they’re supposed to be watered on some kind of schedule. I cannot seem to figure out how to deadhead mums. People keep telling me that it’s nice that I have a backyard and I should Do Something nice with it and all I can really say is that if anyone else wants to come garden my backyard for me, I’d be very grateful and pay you in nice cold drinks. If I do anything with the backyard this summer it’ll be “wash the trash cans.” I feel like I’m the only person I know who didn’t become a plant mom over the pandemic. I do, however, love roses, and here in the real world they don’t even require magic to grow (or so I am told), and all the beautiful, lush descriptions of different kinds of roses and the relationship Beauty has with them ended up making me sad that I hate plant care.
That said it is a beautiful, magical, lyrical book, and a great take on Beauty and the Beast. I will certainly be keeping my eyes peeled for additional cheap McKinley novels that I haven’t read since I was nine.
I’m on a little bit of a fairy tales kick mentally right now because of Dimension 20 Neverafter, which has some cool things I really like and some things I think are not working, so during the episodes I keep finding myself eyeing the various fairy and folk tales collections and retellings and such on my shelves instead of watching the screen. I’m doing Grimm for my yearlong read, so I didn’t really just want to also read any of my Lang Colored Fairy Books at the same time; hence, I figured it was finally the correct time for Rose Daughter.
Rose Daughter is McKinley’s second retelling of Beauty and the Beast, published 20 years after Beauty. As is unsurprising given the title, this one is mostly about roses. This version of Beauty is an inveterate gardener, always running away from her governesses to muck about in the dirt when the family was wealthy. After their ruin, Beauty, her two sisters, and their ailing father move into the one piece of property left to them, a mysterious, ramshackle house out in the countryside called Rose Cottage.
Roses, in this universe, are pretty rare, and essentially require magic to grow–either sorcery, or better yet, a magical amount of love (the mechanics of this are a little unclear but it works beautifully in-story. A hard magic system it is not). When they arrive, Rose Cottage is surrounded by ill-tempered thorny bushes that Beauty has never seen before, and which turn do turn out to be roses, which only bloom once Beauty arrives to reinvigorate them–the townsfolk say they haven’t bloomed in many years, and only grow when a greenwitch is living there. When Beauty is eventually fated to go live with the Beast in his big creepy magic castle (and it is deliciously creepy), her task there is clearly to rescue the dying rosebushes in the big glasshouse in the middle of the castle grounds. This project eventually exposes all the shenanigans regarding the Beast’s backstory, Rose Cottage’s backstory, Beauty’s mom’s backstory, why the town Rose Cottage is in doesn’t have any resident sorcerers or magicians, and generally rights a multigenerational wrong in a tidy and satisfying way.
One thing that is fun about this version is that Beauty’s two sisters, Lionheart and Jeweltongue, each have their own personalities and character arcs, and the three of them all have very close, warm sisterly relationships despite being very different from each other. This bucks a traditional fairy tale trend that when there are three siblings, only the youngest one whomst is the story’s hero ever is even a decent human being. Instead, in this novel, we get a full family drama of everyone learning coping skills and discovering new talents and generally finding inner strength in the face of serious life challenges and all that good stuff. Even the father, once he begins recovering from the strain of his mental breakdown and the loss of his business, discovers a previously unknown talent for poetry, makes some friends, and eases up a little on his aversion to magic.
Another thing that is fun about this version is, and this is a spoiler: It avoids the “Your reward for loving someone gross is you don’t have to love someone gross!” (Zac Oyama, Adventuring Party) problem. Beauty is given a choice of returning the Beast to his former handsome form and wealth and influence, and instead decides that they’re just going to live their own little life in Rose Cottage and grow roses and that’ll be enough. So that’s nice and pastoral.
The one thing I did not love about this story is that it made me feel bad about my black thumb and general laziness and dislike of gardening. I keep buying cheap potted plants from Market Basket and can’t be arsed to figure out if they’re supposed to be watered on some kind of schedule. I cannot seem to figure out how to deadhead mums. People keep telling me that it’s nice that I have a backyard and I should Do Something nice with it and all I can really say is that if anyone else wants to come garden my backyard for me, I’d be very grateful and pay you in nice cold drinks. If I do anything with the backyard this summer it’ll be “wash the trash cans.” I feel like I’m the only person I know who didn’t become a plant mom over the pandemic. I do, however, love roses, and here in the real world they don’t even require magic to grow (or so I am told), and all the beautiful, lush descriptions of different kinds of roses and the relationship Beauty has with them ended up making me sad that I hate plant care.
That said it is a beautiful, magical, lyrical book, and a great take on Beauty and the Beast. I will certainly be keeping my eyes peeled for additional cheap McKinley novels that I haven’t read since I was nine.