Title: Withering Rose
Author: Kaitlyn Davis
Pages: 210
Genre: YA Fantasy
Release Date: 17 May 2016

From Goodreads: "Omorose Bouchene has a secret--magic. There's only one problem. At the age of seven, an earthquake struck, catapulting her into a new world. A land made of skyscrapers and cell phones. Fast cars and fluorescent lights. A land where magic isn't supposed to exist and anyone who wields it is the enemy. But after ten years of hiding, she's desperate to find a place where she can be free. Because all magic comes with a curse, and her curse is time--every ounce of power she uses strips days off of her life. The clock is winding down, and the only option left is to escape to the realm of the Beast. But the king of monsters isn't what he seems. And the more Omorose opens her heart, the more she comes to realize that the only person she may need to fear is herself."

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for review!

Let me start this review off by saying that while this is the second book in the 'Once Upon A Curse' series, these books can be read as stand-alone's!

Withering Rose is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast and is the second in a fairy tale retelling series that imagines the world of magic colliding with our world that consists of no magic. In this, Omorose and her father are thrown into the non-magical world due to an earthquake and are basically taken into custody by the government. In exchange for safety in this new world, Omorose's father agrees to tell the leader of their new home everything he knows about magic in order to help humanity fight the world of magic that came with the earthquake. But Omorose has a secret- she has magic within her, and it's dying to get out.

If you read the book you know that that was a really clever pun.

I am a huge fan of Beauty and the Beast, so I knew instantly that I would enjoy this book. The writing was absolutely beautiful and really fun to read and honestly, I flew through this book in just a few hours. The similarities between this and Beauty and the Beast were very prominent and anytime I read something related to it, I got the biggest smile on my face. Kaitlyn Davis did an amazing job with this book and really captured the feeling of a fairy tale. Not only that, but she was able to merge the world of fantasy with the "real" world in a way that wasn't cheesy, but magical, for lack of a better phrase.

Omorose, while being the "Belle" of the story, was anything but. She was shy, quiet, reserved, afraid, and nothing like the headstrong, independent "Belle" that I expected. But I understood why she was like that after being thrown into the non-magical world. She had to keep her head down and not draw attention to herself due to her having magic. As the story went on, however, Omorose definitely developed into a much stronger character, and was able to absolutely win me over. She grew into a girl who was willing to sacrifice everything in order to save those she loved, and who doesn't love a good character development? I am crossing my fingers that Omorose shows up in the third book!

Reading Withering Rose has definitely gotten me hooked on Kaitlyn Davis' writing and I am itching for the third book (Chasing Midnight coming in 2017!) which I just know is going to be amazing. I am also going to be picking up Gathering Frost, the first book in the series, because there is likely some backstory included and there are also two characters from it who show up in Withering Rose!

If you enjoy fantasy with a hint of dystopia thrown in there, definitely check out Withering Rose and the Once Upon A Curse series. This book has action, romance, magic, animals, and a happy ending- it's a "modern" fairy tale that you're sure to love from page one!