Ensnared by Rita Stradling

Genre: Retelling, Science Fiction, Fairytales, Futuristic

Pages: 380

Publication Date: December 18th 2017

Synopsis:

A Near Future Retelling of Beauty and the Beast

Alainn’s father is not a bad man. He’s a genius and an inventor. When he’s hired to create the robot Rose, Alainn knows taking the money is a mistake.

Rose acts like a human. She looks exactly like Alainn. But, something in her comes out wrong.

To save her father from a five year prison sentence, Alainn takes Rose’s place. She says goodbye to the sun and goes to live in a tower no human is allowed to enter. She becomes the prisoner of a man no human is allowed to see.

Believing that a life of servitude lies ahead, Alainn finds a very different fate awaits her in the company of the strange, scarred recluse.

[This novel contains adult situations and is only suitable for readers who are 18+]

My Thoughts

Alainn Murphy is the daughter of a scientist who specializes in Artificial Intelligence, the downside is Mr. Connor Murphy has a gambling issue and has lost a considerable amount of money – have no fear Lorrcan Gorbhan has been funding him.. but soon the money stops and the only option is to send Alainn away or her father will be imprisoned…

Lorccan has many phobias and is locked away in his tower, but when Alainn Murphy is sent to him and he believes her to be an automaton, interesting things begin to happen.

This all sounds interesting, it’s what ensnared me – ha – ha – ha… I made a punny. Beauty & The Beast retelling, romance, science fiction, automatons! In theory, it really would have been fantastic, too!

But, for me, there was no world building which is disappointing because I think a lot could have been done with the world. In fact, there literally is no world outside of the tower once Alainn is there and because there are no others to interact with it’s really just reading back and forth between Lorrcan and Alainn, which would be alright if their development was strong but it wasn’t. There isn’t a lot of progressing, there isn’t a lot of insight either. There are a lot of questions that arise that never really get answered.

The plot also comes to a halt halfway through the book and I mean it’s basically finished by the halfway mark, yet the book continues on. I think if there was more of a world or at least deeper insight into the characters then it wouldn’t have felt like everything came to that screeching halt.

It was a quick read, though. One I would recommend to anyone wanting to devour retellings!