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Aster Glenn Gray
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Briarley Kindle Edition

by Aster Glenn Gray (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 476 ratings
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An m/m World War II-era retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

During a chance summer shower, an English country parson takes refuge in a country house. The house seems deserted, yet the table is laid with a sumptuous banquet such as the parson has not seen since before war rationing.

Unnerved by the uncanny house, he flees, but stops to pluck a single perfect rose from the garden for his daughter - only for the master of the house to appear, breathing fire with rage. Literally. At first, the parson can't stand this dragon-man. But slowly, he begins to feel the injustice of the curse that holds the dragon captive. What can break this vengeful curse?
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  1. Print length
    174 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publication date
    May 5, 2018
  5. File size
    1083 KB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  9. See all details
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07CWF9KT6
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ (May 5, 2018)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 5, 2018
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1083 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 174 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 476 ratings

About the author

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Aster Glenn Gray

Aster Glenn Gray

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Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Aster Glenn Gray writes historical romances and fairy tale retellings. (And maybe other things too. She is still a work in progress.) When she is not writing, she spends much of her time haunting libraries and contemplating whether it is time for another hot chocolate.

To receive notification of new releases, sign up for her mailing list by copying this link and signing up:

http://eepurl.com/dyoJaz

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
476 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Leigh
5.0 out of 5 stars Utter perfection
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2019
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This was so lovely that I have to take a moment to reflect upon said loveliness. Briarley is worth every penny and I need you all to read it. It's a MM Beauty & The Beast retelling set during WWII. All the more impressive is this is a novella. It’s one of the best historical romances I’ve ever read, as well as one of the best BATB retellings I’ve ever read.

The author reinterprets the source material in ways that give it so much more nuance. It’s thoroughly feminist, right down to the parson refusing to send his daughter in his place. Edward consistently puts others’ needs above his own and that leads to the dragon holding him captive instead.

What initially starts off as an adversarial relationship between the two men slowly transforms into a friendship. Edward believes Briar is capable of love and wants to help him break the curse. He finds him a dog, who is missing his back legs from an accident years prior, and it was so touching to watch Briar care for it! Briar’s transformation does not happen overnight. Far from it. He’s been stuck in his ways for almost 120 years (he was 20 when the curse struck) and, spoiled privileged brat that he is and was, he wants it reversed without lifting a finger. His emotional arc was beautiful to watch and I was in awe of how Gray built toward it.

The has a great sense of humor throughout, which makes for a good balance, for example, as it explores the different attitudes about homosexuality in 1840 vs 1940. The dragon was cursed in 1840 and the story delves in to how the world has changed around him, from technological advances to current events. He’s also working through the religious and societal biases against homosexuality at the time and Edward can’t give him great hope about the prevailing attitudes in 1940. However, he had a loving relationship with a man and he’s done his own theological searching and determined their love was not wrong. Progress has been made in the intervening 100 years and it was so interesting to see how the story explored this, as well as how it examined faith, particularly through Edward’s work.

Lastly, Edward was injured during the first world war, when his boyfriend was also killed. The story does not shy away from depicting his disability, nor from the cost and toll of war as WWII’s dangers toward England make themselves known. I can’t speak to the representation but it struck me as honoring and true.

CW: war, homophobia, religious homophobia, bombing, house fire, leg injury
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amf0001
4.0 out of 5 stars Charming
Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2020
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Lovely retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I liked that it took it's time, gently meandering through the story. I loved the Parson and his sensibilities. I felt less for the Beast/Dragon who seemed to have learnt very little in a hundred years. He really did feel like the 20 year old who had been cursed and then never grew up. But the ending worked, and the journey was interesting. I don't know how often I will reread it, but I'm happy to recommend it.
On the basis of this book I will look for more by Aster Glenn Gray
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Far-ranging Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars What kind of love can break a curse?
Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2018
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Briarley retells the story of Beauty and the Beast, imagining what might happen if Beauty’s father was man enough not to let his daughter sacrifice herself for him. Instead, he stays in her place. In this retelling, it’s World War II, and the father is a parson who’s also a veteran of the Great War, and the beast takes the form of a dragon.

You know this is going to be a different type of retelling by the parson’s initial reaction to the dragon’s dilemma:
“The curse says you must learn to love and be loved, does it not? Those are the only conditions? ... Then I suggest you get a puppy.”

Nor is this mere flippancy: “I have seen shell-shocked soldiers make great, great strides when they are given charge of a dog,” the parson says, and adds, “A dog is a more loving creature than man. All the things that we wish we were, dogs are: loyal, faithful, loving, and cheerful in the face of adversity."

And that’s the type of story this is: the parson musing on the nature of love, different types of love, in the company of the dragon, who’s at first haughty, vain, capricious, and entitled, but gradually becomes… well, somewhat less so. Gray resists the easy out of a dramatic personality transformation—the emotional equivalent of taking off the glasses and having a character become suddenly gorgeous. Real people are beloved despite being prickly and short tempered. In this story, the parson has reasons for feeling both deep pity for and a deep attachment to the young man that the dragon once was.

The two talk not only about love, but also morality, vindictiveness, compassion—so much. And lest I’ve made it sound like some kind of milk-soaked graham cracker of a story, let me quickly also add that it’s **funny** too, as when the parson have this exchange:

“That’s not how you learn to love, not at all. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it does not kidnap – ”
“You’re misquoting,” the dragon interrupted. “Paul doesn’t say anything about kidnapping.”

The parson replies, “I believe the injunction against kidnapping is implied by all the rest of it.”

--It’s an original, moving, surprising story—I highly recommend it.
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LuckyGirl
4.0 out of 5 stars Romance Lite
Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2021
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A good story, but if you're hoping for heat or swoon, you won't find it here. A few PG kisses in the last chapter.
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F. Chen
5.0 out of 5 stars Moving reimagining of the Beast…
Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2023
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Aster Glenn Gray’s Briarley is a deeply moving reimagining of the cursed Beast and his castle. A parson, Edward Harper, stumbles across an enchanted estate, and meets its owner, Ambrose Briarley… He refuses to exchange his daughter for his freedom, and he and Briarley slowly get to know each other.

Love the slowly unfolding friendships and relationships portrayed, and the author also makes excellent use of the wartime setting as well. Definitely looking forward to reading more by this writer.
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Top reviews from other countries

Caitlíona
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely charming retelling of fairytale
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 16, 2023
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Clever world-building, a touching and romantic story and, most of all, a truly good man as the hero of this novel. I really enjoyed it. I happened upon the work of this author quite by chance and now, having read three of her books, I’m a fan. She writes simply and beautifully with a profound understanding of her characters. Themes of forgiveness and second chances recur. Lovely!
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Janet Hill
5.0 out of 5 stars A sweet twist on fairytales
Reviewed in Canada on December 19, 2019
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A mix of fairytales as an enchanted dragon finds love from inside his charmed house somewhere in WWII England. He and his love cannot be protected from the war outside however.

I enjoyed the many lovely trope twists. A sweet short story, highly recommend.
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Sara Maouane
4.0 out of 5 stars A sweet and funny M/M retelling of Beauty and the Beast
Reviewed in France on November 9, 2018
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Beauty and the Beast retellings always attract my attention, however full of questionable morals the original tale was. Remove the Stockholm Syndrome part and give the story a fresh twist and you'll have an enthusiastic reader in me.
This was the case for Briarley. The twist was in the setting (England during WWII) and in the protagonists (an older man instead of a young girl as the Beast's "captive") - and it worked perfectly well. The romance was a slow-burn, and I loved the book's touches of humour and humanity. There is an interesting, touching reflexion about religion and homosexuality (the hero is a bisexual country parson); nothing preachy, just a beautiful message of hope and acceptance.
All in all a win for me, and I'll be following Gray's work!
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Greatgreenbird
4.0 out of 5 stars A lot to like but some things left hanging...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 27, 2020
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Briarley is another of the raft of books I've picked up while in lockdown, usually because the price has dropped dramatically and I have some Amazon credit - to be honest, I don't usually buy novellas because they annoy me for various reasons (often they feel incomplete and/or I begrudge paying novel prices for novella-length books) but I thought I'd take a chance on this one...

It's sold as a m/m retelling of Beauty and the Beast and that's very much what it is. In this case, our wanderer who finds himself in the beautiful grounds of a mysterious house and picks a rose to take home to his daughter decides that he should stay, rather than making her come and be involved in all this enchantment nonsense. Part of that decision is based on the fact that it's wartime and his daughter is working as a nurse, while he's a country vicar so much less important to the war effort, and partly just because it feels wrong to him to trap his daughter into the repercussions of his own actions.

Our Beast in this case is a man now trapped in dragon-form, or part-dragon at least, while his servants are invisible. Their time is running out, as it's coming up on 100 years since the initial curse and nobody is quite sure what will happen when time is up. Our protagonist is a sensible sort and suggests getting a dog, for starters, only to come back to the house with one which has been disabled in an accident. When that doesn't work to break the curse, and he finds out that a number of girls had come to the house and failed to break it either, he starts to wonder whether there's a little more going on with his host than just the change in his appearance.

It's a nicely-told story, which keeps trundling along at a reasonable pace, and with a very much expected fade-to-black at the end. What stopped it from being 5 stars for me is the fact that things still remain unresolved at the end (see my previous comment about novellas often feeling incomplete) - half of the house burns down at the end and it's just hand-waved over. There's plenty of other things for everyone involved to sort out before the story would finally be Over: how do the servants explain to everyone in the village why they don't have ration cards? How will everyone feed themselves now that they don't have magically-produced food to live on? This is just how my brain works, I'm afraid, thinking about these kinds of things.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 19, 2023
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Initially I struggled to fall into the right mind space to adapt to the twist of this retelling but once it finally hit me I couldn't put this book down. I teared up a few times at the end. So glad I stuck with it. Utterly devastated I reached the last page.
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