Four major social media empires control the information and power. Story told in chapters alternating
between Alana and Thorn, the main characters.
Computers run on power generated by crystals/gems that are charged by members of each organization.
When Alana becomes heir to Aquarius Social, her father proposes a marriage/merger with Hologrid
to improve their standing and hopefully overtake number one Malice Media and second place TimeGen
Moments. Thorn of Malice Media is obsessed with Alana and has no intention of letting the marriage
happen and has her watched to keep her safe. Questions arise as to how Alana's brother actually died
and who is attacking Malice Media's computer system. The answers will change the balance of power.
First in a new series.
#OneCursedRose #Kensington #NetGalley

I love Rebecca Zanetti and I love beauty and the beast themed stories but this one is just not for me.

One Cursed Rose will be the first of a darker-themed, twisted fairy tales series for Rebecca Zanetti. While I understand her attempt at the darker, sexual theme to the story, added to the weird world building, this  series will simply be a Nope from me.

There is a content warning in the beginning of the book indicating "dark themes, obsessive and morally gray hero; spicy bedroom scenes for mature readers only; light bondage; nudity, corporal punishment, swearing, torture, inappropriate use of bathrobe belts."  Really? We had to add swearing into this list. I think if you get past torture, you won't be offended by the F word.

After reading 25 percent of the novel, which is just the basic backdrop of the story, I simply wasn't excited about spending more time reading what will be a bondage/sex story wrapped up in a weird fairytale world.

The world building is that there are four main families who dominate the world with their TikTok/Instagram type of social media accounts and they get boosts of magical power for your clicks and likes. They also each have a signature family gem-stone which focuses that magical power. What? I admit I was uninterested in this whole premise from the get go.

All the major families are controlled by the evil, horrible and spoiled rich and powerful, except Alana and her BFF's, Ella and Rosalie, who with the help of an old gentlemen named Merlin do good deeds like feed school kids and provide shelters for abused women and children--all in secret--funneling money from trust funds, etc. so their evil families don't stop them, while they pretend to be ditzy, fashion-focused air-heads so no one suspects them of anything.

Alana's family is falling to number 4 in that list of powerful families so her father wants her to marry into the no. 3 family to combine their power structure. Of course, this groom to be is a slutty, playboy who wants to make sure Alana's truly a virgin so he can have bragging rights to be the first and who also gives the vibe of future violent, abusive spouse. But Alana is saved from this by a Thorne, who is head of the most powerful family and who is very questionable in our use of "hero" of this story.

While Disney's Belle sacrifices herself to save her father and falls for the tortured beast, here Thorne is a vicious killer who is obsessed with Alana but instead of making an offer to her father, he abducts Alana and take her to his castle fortress on the outskirts of the city. This fortress includes a tattooed Mrs Potts and an actual moat with killer fish.

Thorne has been poisoned (cursed?) through his gem stone and is suffering from "Lexical-Gustatory Synesthesia" which means he gets a taste in his mouth when hears someone speak. It could be garbage or worse (because of the type of people he hangs with) or yummy honey, like when Alana speaks. What????? Yeah. I am not excited about this world-building.

At it core, this story will be about Alana and Thorne exploring the darker side of bed sport.  It should be disturbing that he kidnaps her with all intent on keeping her for sex but since Alana responds positively to him, we ignore that gray area of is it really consensual? since she can't walk away nor is he really asking her permission.   Would he continue anyway, if she wasn't kissing him back?  He is a vicious killer with no moral compass and an obsession with Alana.  Is her cooperation really necessary for Thorne, or is that simply to make it more palatable to us?  While I can enjoy a good naughty-book for what it is, I do like when there is some story between bouts of sex. In this case, I wasn't even interested in any more of this world-building.  For me, I think walking away was my best choice.

This is the first story of a series which will obviously include Alana's friends Ella (presumably Cinderella) and Rosalie (not sure sure which story she is from). I love Rebecca's Deep Ops and Anna Albertini series but I am going to be skipping this one.

thank you to netgalley for the advanced reading copy. I really enjoyed this and will be getting copies for my shop.

"From the dawn of civilization, or probably before that, there have been four families. The four who have always ruled, regardless of country or even god."

In this urban fantasy dark retelling of Beauty and the Beast, Thorn Beathach, the head of a rival social media empire, rescues Alana, heir to Aquarius social, after an assassination attempt is made on her life. What follows is a chain of events that sees deadly, dangerous secrets being uncovered and an unlikely romance blossoming between two rivals.

Thoughts:
I thorougly enjoyed this! Great whodunnit plot with twists that had my jaw on the floor. There's a sort of magic system that includes crystals and connection to source that I wish was explained just a tad bit more as it is so interesting! The MMC is deliciously complex, morally grey, and is a coding genius. The FMC is sassy, smart, and loves to read. This book is dark, so the spice is KINKY AF (so good!!). Would recommend, but make sure to check the content warnings before indulging in this one!

Relevant tropes:
Obsession
Touch her and ☠️
Who did this to you?
Forced proximity (Kidn*pping)
Rivals to lovers
Stockholm Syndrome
Spank kink
Good girl
Mafia vibes

This was so different from her last books. It's darker and has some magic. They are using crystals for power. It has four families and they are rivals. And of course, the main characters are from different families.

Thorn & Alana.
I liked their chemistry and banter. I liked their kink. I loved how they made each other stronger. And I liked the side characters also. They seemed interesting.
But.... the plot. I got the plot, the kidnapping the killing. It was interesting. But the crystals!! It was an interesting idea and concept but I needed to know more. It was like "Here are some crystals that too that and those other crystals to that" and that's it. Let's not talk about it more 🤔

I have read a lot of her books. And I have loved most of them. So I will continue with this series. Hoping we get more depth.

Thank you Kensington Books and Netgalley for the ARC!

This was a delicious dark romance retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

I really enjoyed this one and the concept of the crystals being used for their energy was intriguing if a little cringey in that it was being used for social media companies. However I guess that is what everything is about these days! I also liked that one of Alana's friends seemed to be representing Cinderella - maybe a hint at a possible next retelling?

Thorn is a great morally grey (leaning towards black) male character and shows his love for Alana in some interesting ways, but you can tell that he has a heart of gold despite the questionable methods he employs.

I mentally checked out from this book because of the penetration scene with the knife. To be fair, I did know going into it this would be dark romance, and maybe I just missed a list of triggers, but I couldn't really care about Thorn anymore after that.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

For one thing I usually strongly dislike first person present writing. This time was no different. So to be fair, I did not read this book completely. I skimmed it enough to catch that in the world of these books, there are 5 big families and my impression was that they had powers and acted kind of like mafia families. Sigh. Also, there is spice of the D/s type, so if that works for you, there you go. I did not like our leads. I did not care about the poor little rich girl with the abusive family problems, or our wounded warrior male lead. I like a lot of this author's stuff, and was looking forward to her take on Beauty and the Beast with some spice. Not only did I not like this one, I don't think it works as Beauty and the Beast. Again, I skimmed because of hating first person present. So take this review with a grain of salt.

I really enjoyed this. A dark romance where there are redeeming qualities in guy makes me swoon. The underlying story with the crystals is so unique, I have never read anything like it before. If I didn’t know this was a beauty and the beats retelling, I wouldn’t know. Which I like, it lets the story have a life of its own. Highly recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley and Rebecca Zanetti for the arc! I really wished that I could say that I enjoyed One Cursed Rose, the premise and the idea behind it sounded amazing, but this just didn't work at all for me.

This is such an original story. It took a bit for me to make sense of the premise but such a great read. Thorn is a hot nightmare. His personality is totally out of bounds. His interactions with Alana are twisted and scorching. Not a read for the faint of heart but take a chance. It's awesome!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
I've read many Zanetti books and loved them all. So you can imagine how disappointed I was that this book didn't even come close to the quality of my past RZ reads. It made me wonder whether it had been written by a ghost writer, then passed on to a neglectful editor.
<b>What I liked:</b>
The concept and many of the ideas in the PNR story
<b>What I didn't like:</b>
- The delivery and writing were sub-par; mechanical, unpolished, awkward, lacked nuance
- MMC was a cardboard character / FMC has little personality
- Lack of chemistry & the kink was awkward & misplaced in the story
- MMC patronized the FMC, diminishing her in the story
- Story elements often confusing / lacked development
- Lots of unnecessary / awkward talk about wealth that drove me crazy. 🙄 Him: ‘we arrive in my palatial kitchen’ / Her: ‘he had…battered but high-end combat boots’
Unfortunately, this was a 2-star read for me. However, I'm eager to read her newly released book #6 in the Anna Albertini Files series, which I'm loving - as well as her other books.

One Cursed Rose is book one in Rebecca Zanetti’s Grimm Bargains series. While I love RZ and a Beauty and the Beast re-telling, this one fell a bit flat for me.

This is set in a world where four families control the social media universe by harnessing the power of peoples emotions, senses and using crystals. Alana is the figurehead of Aquarius Social and Thorn the head of Malice Media. When Alana’s dad demands she marry a rivals son, Thorn kidnaps her. One Cursed Rose has corporate espionage, family backstabbing and steam all set against Thorn’s race to stop a virus from destroying his company and him.

So Sigh, I really wanted to love this one, I really did… it’s everything I enjoy, Beauty and the Beast and Rebecca Zanetti so while I though it was ok, I wasn’t blown away. The crystals aspect was too hokey for me, I get the cursed rose is dying so the Beast is and the crystal dying so Thorn is too but ehhhh. Alana has an unusual phobia that the reader knows plays a part in her backstory and you want to shake her to figure it out. Thorn an abnormal taste synesthesia, which I have no clue if it’s a real thing but it added depth to Thorn’s character that I liked. I felt the pacing dragged in the middle then wrapped up quickly with a resolution on who actually did the “cursing” a person I wouldn’t have guessed and thought was an odd decision. It’s marketed as a dark romance and maybe I read too many really dark romances but this was not as dark as I expected. Yes, there is kidnapping, BDSM, a sexy knife scene and spanking so I guess it’s dark.

Overall, not my favorite Rebecca Zanetti but I can see some readers will enjoy this.

Thank you to the publisher (Kensington Books) and NetGalley for an E-ARC in exchange for an honest review, all thoughts are my own. One Cursed Rose has a publish date of June 25, 2024.

stars: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
spice: 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ . 5

i will give my first born child in exchange for a second book in this series.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

I'm a sucker for a Beauty and the Beast retelling (or really any fairytale) but this one was just not good for me. I think it is an ambitious idea and I think some elements worked, but for the most part this book was kind of a mess.

So, the world building is . . . the word I must use again is ambitious! I like the idea of crystals and energy being powerful and these families having a kind of magic, but it got very lost somewhere. Like, the lore would be interesting if any of it was ever explained? Exposition can be heavy handed, but this is like, negative exposition when it comes to the rules of this universe. It also doesn't seem internally consistent to me: so there are four families, each has a social media company and has an affinity with a kind of jewel. The magic is a secret from regular people, so how do people get involved in this even??? Unless you're born into one of the families, in which case, after a few generations, everyone would be related. And what do they even use the crystal magic FOR? We never see them use it for anything except generating more, coding, and once at the end of the book for a spoiler.

I could forgive a lot of this if the characters grabbed me, but . . . no. Alana is a garden variety Mary Sue- she's rich and gorgeous, but also brilliant! She reads in multiple languages! She uses her riches to save women from being trafficked! Alana is meant to be Belle, but aside from wearing yellow and being smart? Not sure what they have in common. Alana doesn't really want anything, except to help people in a vague way. She isn't lonely or longing for romance, despite being a virgin in her twenties because her dad would kill any guy she got involved with. She's a social media influencer, which is barely addressed (even though it is a job that does keep people busy) except for plot convenience.

The less said about Thorn the better- but I will say this: why are so many of the Alphahole romance heroes so much like Batman? His main thing is he is obsessed with Alana- he has been lightly stalking her for a while. We really don't know why she caught his eye, just that he has decided she will be his. Thorn is considered kinda monsterous for being a Mafioso and killing lots of bad guys, but I found him pretty bland.

I didn't buy the ending at all in terms of who "cursed" Thorn- I just don't see that character taking part in murder, though we didn't get much characterization of them anyway. I was indifferent to the rest of the plot, but I did want to finish it to find out what happened, so I can't say I wasn't a little invested.

I’ll start by saying I’ve always wondered if people were truly honest when they received an ARC copy, or if they even actually read the book. I can guarantee both here, and this is the first ARC I’ve ever received. I actually considered pre-ordering this book on Amazon because it looks beautiful, and I’m a sucker for sprayed edges. But I can affirmatively say I won’t now….this book just wasn’t for me.

The crystals/charging, sci-fi piece of this was lost on me. But I could have gotten over that. And dark romances don’t bother me, but the extreme kink does. No part of me wants to read about a woman being “spanked” until she’s bruised…and even less of me wants to read about a woman being whipped with a belt in her private area repeatedly while she’s sobbing. Maybe I’m just too vanilla, but there’s absolutely nothing you can do to convince me that’s pleasurable and not abusive. I love a good “I’ll hurt everyone that’s ever wronged you and scorch this earth for you” man. But “punishing” and “controlling” a woman…so much as to implant a tracker in her when she’s unconscious…yeah, that’s not my style.

The banter was okay, the plot twists just meh (I guessed them both ahead of time), and a lot of it was too forced. It would have been a lower rating for me, but the writing style was easy, I stayed engaged for a lot of it, and it was a quick read. If you want 50 shades meets stalker/dark romance meets sci-fi…this might be for you. But it’s a hard pass for me. 2.5 rounded down.

Beauty and the Beast meets the darker side of parasocial relationships in One Cursed Rose by Rebecca Zanetti.

In Alana’s world, one controlled by four ruling families at the peak of four distinct social media empires, she knows her role: continuously post on her family’s social media platform, garner likes and interactions, and help fuel the gemstones that keep her family and her family’s empire strong. But when Alana is kidnapped by Thorn, the scarred and beastly head of a rival social media family, she quickly learns to appreciate the darker side of life and realizes that the true beauty of the rose is only amplified by the thorns.

One Cursed Rose was a solid four out of five stars for me. I liked a lot of the elements that Zanetti included in her fairytale reimagining, but I actually would’ve liked to see her take the dark elements even further. Thorn was built up to be a scary shadow of a man, someone too dangerous and too scarred to have a place in normal society, but Alana barely brought it up and rival families were willing to marry him in a heartbeat. Most of the time we spent with Thorn, I forgot he was supposed to be someone to fear. Most of his worst deeds were off-page, so it was easy to just imagine Thorn as another rich guy who likes to take control in the bedroom.

I liked Alana; she knew her father saw her as less because she wasn’t the male heir, so she used her money to help out the less fortunate and tried to make a difference where she could. I would’ve liked to see Alana make a bigger deal out of her nights with Thorn, especially that first night, but she was, overall, a strong main character.

I thought the social media aspects of the story were very unique and not something I’ve run across in any type of fiction, let alone dark romance. The social media platforms were a bit hard to understand the dynamics of early in the story, and I could’ve either used more information and descriptions or less importance placed on the platforms themselves.

Overall, One Cursed Rose was a solid dark romance with plenty of Beauty and the Beast references and lots of characters to enjoy.

While reading this, I was incapable of shutting off my rational brain which tells me that if whoever the incredibly wealthy and dangerous (obsessed stalker) MMC is wasn’t wildly rich, they’d simply be viewed as a creepy predator. I don’t enjoy this dichotomy.

I didn’t enjoy the writing, the characters all felt incomplete, and I wasn’t able to get into the story. And that knife scene? Yeah, absolutely not.

This one really wasn’t for me.



Thank you to Kensington and NetGalley for the DRC

One cursed rose is a dark beauty and the beast retelling that revolves around the modern day romance of Thorn and Alana.
I have been on a fairytale kick lately so this was right up my alley. I was very excited to receive this pre release I had already had its deluxe copy in my preorders.

What I loved:
Give me a murderous, obsessive stalker any day of the week and I will go for it like a fish in water so this book had me intrigued from the start. It’s a dual POV which I love because you get inside the minds of both characters and can really feel the spark between them.
The chemistry between the two in this book was phenomenal. Thorn who’s not just morally grey he’s pitch black, and really pulls out the Beast while Alana is ever the Beauty in this dark, stalker romance.
I’m a sucker for dom-sub play and the spicy scenes in this book were really sexy and fun it kept me invested for sure. I also loved the details behind the death of Alana’s relatives. That was a twist I didn’t see coming and I love a good mystery.

What I liked:
I liked the concept Thorn was the head of the Irish mafia even though we really didn’t get details into that it gives us as readers a sense of why he’s a kill first ask questions later kinda guy. Who doesn’t love a good mafia romance? Am I right?! I know not everyone will agree but I found it relatable and really enjoyed that our FMC appears vapid but is a more than meets the eye kinda girl. We see more of her intellect and humor shine through as her romance buds with our dark love interest.
I enjoyed that the four governing families basically own twitter,tiktok, etc. and were all competing for the top spot. It brought a fun take on this book while I enjoyed it I think it would be better targeted to a younger demographic in that aspect.

What I found confusing:
the crystals. After finishing I understand their importance to the storyline but in the beginning it definitely threw me for a loop.
A big one, was in the way she’s presented at the beginning relayed more to me of an 80s rock band groupie than social media influencer. In the day and age of the clean girl aesthetic, the mix of bright colors and teased hair with red painted lips and red pumps are hard to conceptualize. is she living in the early 00’s? Nope, ok. When i think of famous influencers i think of soft curls, baby lights or balayage, a neutral clean makeup palette, she wears an array of white and beige neutrals with maybe a hit of rose gold or aquamarine accents. So it was hard to build that connection with Alana at first.

What I could live without:
the phobia our fmc has I felt was absolutely unnecessary and off putting to her character. To follow that, the thing with Thorn and tasting words, it was less cringy than her phobia but still deducted from the likability of the characters.
If that wasn’t bad enough her use of her social media presence to evoke emotion to come to the rescue at the end was not only anticlimactic and felt rushed, the eye roll I had from it was most definitely audible.

As a whole it was a fun read. I would say it’s a very loose retelling of beauty & the beast. I wouldn’t recommend this book to everyone, it just had so much going on that it gave me whiplash.


Tropes I love in this book
Mafia
Bondage play
Stalker romance
Enemies to lovers

One Cursed Rose by Rebecca Zanetti is Beauty and the Beast meets Dark Olympus in all the best ways.

In a world where four families harness power based on a combination of engagement with their social media platforms and crystals, Alana Beaumont finds herself at the center of a dark scheme for power. Thorn Beathach, heir of one of the four families, has been cursed, but nothing short of death will keep him from carrying out his own sense of justice. When Alana is the victim of an attempted murder, the two begin a hard and fast descent into a dark mystery with roots deeper than they could have imagined.

This book was dark, steamy, and extremely captivating. While I'm not a huge fan of the stalking/obsession trope, our girl Alana certainly is and I love that for her. I hope that One Cursed Rose is just the introduction to this world and that the other well rounded characters have their stories told!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review!