Blog Tour - The Beast and Bethany - Revenge of the Beast

Blog Tour - The Beast and Bethany - Revenge of the Beast by Jack Meggit-Phillips

Good morning! Today I have a totally beastly book to review for you as part of The Write Reads Blog Tour.

Lemony Snicket meets Roald Dahl in this riotously funny, deliciously macabre, and highly illustrated sequel to The Beast and the Bethany in which Bethany and Ebenezer try to turn over a new leaf, only to have someone—or something—thwart them at every turn. Once upon a very badly behaved time, 511-year-old Ebenezer kept a beast in his attic. He would feed the beast all manner of objects and creatures and in return the beast would vomit him up expensive presents. But then the Bethany arrived. Now notorious prankster Bethany, along with her new feathery friend Claudette, is determined that she and Ebenezer are going to de-beast their lives and Do Good. But Bethany finds that being a former prankster makes it hard to get taken on for voluntary work. And Ebenezer secretly misses the beast’s vomity gifts. And neither of them are all that sure what “good people” do anyway. Then there’s Claudette, who’s not been feeling herself recently. Has she eaten something that has disagreed with her?

I loved The Beast and the Bethany, with it's horrible monster planning on eating quite a horrid girl, so I was really looking forward to Revenge of the Beast.

It did not disappoint.

Bethany has largely turned her life around, as has Ebenezer. However the people of the town are having trouble accepting her as anything other than a troublesome prankster. I loved her attempts to prove to people that she really, really did want to be a do-gooder. Unfortunately, whatever she tries, it feels like there's something going wrong. The slow, subtle return of the beast was really well done, as you could feel his influence creeping out all over, building up to a dramatic, and horrific, climax. 

There was a great new cast of supporting characters, with Gloria being a stand-out as a new horrid "orphan" girl who wants to out-do Bethany in the ghastly stakes. 

I also loved seeing the flashbacks to Ebenezer's past history with the beast, and learning more about their relationship down the ages. This really started to flesh out the beast's personal mythology, and I'm hoping to see more of this in book three.

Fantastic, funny and horrible, I loved it! Definitely gets five moons.

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕

The Beast and Bethany; Revenge of the Beast is published by Farshore and is out now. I was given a copy of the book in return for an honest review and participation in The Write Reads blog tour.

Don't forget to check out the other destinations the Beast is visiting on this tour!