Falling for the Pied Piper: To Win a Dark Heart (A Beauty and the Beast & Pied Piper Retelling)

Falling for the Pied Piper is the tenth book in the To Win A Dark Heart multiauthor series where two characters we usually know as villains fall for each other and get their happy end. In some cases these villains are just misunderstood and there’s a good explanation for their crimes, in others they start as actually quite evil and have a real redemption arc.

In this mashup we obviously meet the Pied Piper Reid, while our heroine, Selene, the enchantress who cursed the Prince from Beauty and the Beast, tries to catch the Piper to redeem herself in the eyes of her parents and the High Stewards.

I have to be honest, I’m not the biggest fan of the story of the Pied Piper which is technically not a fairy tale but a legend and as such it show more has a real historical core/basis. In this case the mysterious disappearance of a large group of children. There are possible explanations for this occurrence, but this story has always unsettled me and I’m a bit conflicted about turning real life tragedies into entertainment.

Yeah yeah, this might sound petty since we’re dealing with an already altered story and not an historically accurate account, but this is just how I feel. So a Pied Piper retelling has to work extra hard to gain my personal approval - and this one did! I have loved all of Ashley Evercott’s books so far and this one is one of my two favorites of this multiauthor series!

The Pied Piper references are much stronger than the Beauty and the Beast ones, but I think they worked well together and I thought it was a really interesting viewpoint on the latter fairy tale.

Selene is a very proud young woman and I wasn’t sure if I liked her at first, but she has a wonderful redemption arc and I love that she took responsibility for her own faults, not trying to blame others in the end.

I was a bit suspicious of Reid, but he is such a funny and sweet character and the slow burn romance between him and Selene was pretty much perfect. I loved their banter and chemistry and how mistrust turned into something completely new.

This fast paced story also has great animal sidekicks and is just a wonderful addition to the series. It’s very well written and I was soon completely immersed in the story.

Definitely recommend if you love grumpy/sunshine and enemies to lovers romances!

* Thank you to the author for letting me read an advanced copy of this book. I leave this review voluntarily and the expressed opinions are my own. show less