The Beast and the Bethany - Jack Meggitt-Phillips

Imagine if you could live forever, in a huge house as wide as 12 elephants. And you could eat whatever food you wanted and have all the expensive art and anything else you heart desired. All you have to do is feed the beast whatever he wants. Easy enough when you have limitless wealth. Even the Beast's latest request, a child, doesn't actually bother Ebenezer that much. He doesn't particularly like children and anyway, one little child isn't as important as himself, is it?

The Beast is a huge, smelly, slimy thing with two tongues, Ebenezer Tweezer is an evil little man who cares for absolutely no one but himself. But probably the worst monster of all is Bethany. The naughtiest, rudest, meanest of them all! Ebeneezer picks Bethany as the Beast's next meal but unfortunately for him, things don't go smoothly at all. It's hard to say much without being spoilery, but over time Ebenezer and Bethany start an uneasy relationship. Grudgingly, they both find that they don't want to be quite as horrible to each other any more. The problem is how can they both survive the Beast?

This was so much fun to read, with just a touch of the ridiculous in the way of Alice in Wonderland. Apparently you only get 10 worms for a backpack, a flip-flop, a ruler and a half eaten biscuit. Not that you have much choice when the frog market is only open on Wednesdays. The characters are all well thought out, even the side cast who only get a few paragraphs. The illustrations are wonderful, really adding to the story. I really loved my ARC copy too, which was unfortunately delivered with a few bites taken out of it. Luckily I don't think the Beast ate too much of it so I still got the gist of the story. Thanks anyway to Egmont Books and The Write Reads for letting me take part in the blog tour 😂

In case the Beast ever comes knocking on your door, it's best to have something new and tasty to give him. Try making a Bethany & the Beast cocktail. In a shaker with lots of ice, shake up 1.5 shots gin, 1 shot apple juice, 1 shot lime juice and 1/2 shot rosemary syrup. Strain into a glass and garnish with a sprig of rosemary. Make it a triple for the Beast and maybe he'll fall asleep before eating you!