"SINCE BIRTH, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a reckless bargain her father struck. And since birth, she has been training to kill him. Betrayed by her family yet bound to obey. Nyx rails against her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, she abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, disarm him, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people. But Ignifex is not what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle-a shifting maze of magical rooms-enthralls her. As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex's secrets, she finds herself unwill- ingly drawn to him. But even if she can bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? Based on the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Cruel Beauty is a dazzling love story about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny."