Book Review Tuesday (7/16/19)-Wild Beauty

Hello, fellow bibliophiles, and welcome to this week’s Book Review Tuesday!

Before I found it at the library, I’d been wanting to read this for a short while–I feel like it was either a Goodreads recommendation or a gushing review from another blogger. Either way, I am so glad I found this book. Poetic, impactful, and as lush as the flower gardens in La Pradera. A truly unforgettable read.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Wild Beauty

A strange sort of magic runs in the women in the Nomeolvides family, both a blessing and a curse. They can make flowers grow–each woman has an individual flower–with just a thought, and with this gift, their duty, for the last century, has been to tend to the gardens of the La Pradera estate. But if a Nomeolvides woman falls in love, their curse also gurantees that their partner will die.

When Estrella, one of the youngest Nomeolvides girls, finds a strange boy in the gardens, she’s shocked; now, after the garden has taken so many of their lovers, it has given one back to them…possibly. The boy has no idea who he is and where he came from, other than three letters scrawled on his sleeve: “Fel”. Estrella seeks to find out who Fel really is, but discovers that beneath the enchanting gardens of La Pradera lies a deadly secret, buried for over a century. Is the truth meant to be uncovered?

I haven’t read anything quite like Wild Beauty in a long time. Maybe not ever, period.

I’m serious. The writing was rich and enchanting, each and every character had a unique personality and a key role to play, the story was absolutely intriguing, pulling me along every twist and turn up until the last page. It was, for lack of better words, like nothing I’ve ever seen. Highly recommend it. Stunning.

Wild Beauty is a standalone, and…well, it’s probably a good thing. As beautiful as it was, it’s probably good that we don’t have another, unnecessary installment to bog down the first book. Anna-Marie McLemore does have multiple other novels out, some of which I’ve been wanting to read for a considerably long time, but haven’t yet. Library, don’t fail me…

Thank you so much for reading this review! Have a fantastic day, and take care of yourself! 🙂