Beast

Napoli, Donna Jo. Beast. 2004. 272p. 381 mins. ISBN 9780689870057. Available as an audiobook on Overdrive.

As the future Shah of Persia, Orasmyn has been training his entire life. He as completed the pilgrimage to Mecca, and he is dedicated to the teaching of Islam. A gentle soul, Orasmyn does not reproach his father, the Shah, the ability to hunt, but he prefers plants, especially roses. His father is thrilled because he has received a lion and lionesses from India, and he looks forward to the possibility of slaying a lion with his bare hands.

On the Feast of Sacrifices, Orasmyn makes the call to sacrifice a camel that is not pure. As a result, a vindictive Peri sentences him to die at the hands of his father the very next day, unless he can find a woman who will truly love him. Scared that he might perish in the lion hunt, Orasmyn tells his father and decides to hide for the entire day, hoping to avoid the Peri’s curse. Unfortunately, when Orasmyn awakens he has been transformed into a lion.

Still retaining his human mind, Orasmyn manages to avoid the hunters but realizes that he has in fact been killed by his father, for even if he escapes now he can never return, and his father has lost his son and heir. Learning to be a lion is difficult, and Orasmyn makes his way slowly to India, hoping to find a woman who will love him, or, at any rate, the company of other lions. But the prides do not welcome him, and he is forced to return to Persia. Along the way he remembers a conversation with a Frenchman that the roses in France are the best in the world, so he decides to make his way to France.

The trip is perilous, and it takes him years to make it to the South of France, but when he discovers an old uninhabited castle he knows it will be home forever. He plants roses, hoping to attract a woman who will love him. But when a man seeks shelter in the castle, Orasmyn discovers that he can prey on the man’s fear and force him to send his youngest daughter to him instead. Perhaps she will be the one who will love him and break the curse.

Telling the other side of the beauty and the beast story, Beast describes Orasmyn’s transition from man to beast, the depth of his despair, and the strength of his desire to regain his humanity while surviving as a lion in a foreign country with a different language and customs.