Teaser Tuesday: Beauty

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share a few “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I am pretty obsessed with fairy tales. My favorite painting is a collection of dozens of them. I named my daughter after a college professor that taught a class on fairy tales and myths. And I've been given several books about fairy tales, not all of them written by the brothers Grimm. So when the trend in YA novels turned to fairy tale retellings, I was in heaven. Recently, a friend recommended Robin McKinley's books. I started with Beauty, which is obviously about Beauty and the Beast. And not necessarily Disney's version (because Disney always gets it wrong.) 

Beauty is the youngest of three daughters of a wealthy merchant. Her outward appearance does not reflect her nickname as much as it suits her two sisters. She takes joy in her family, books and horses. But when tragedy strikes, the family loses their fortune and is forced to take on a much humbler existence in a small village at the edge of an enchanted forest. The city-raised family scoffs at the tales of creatures and witches in the wood, but their father soon learns the truth and it tears the family apart.

Here's the Teaser:

"I stopped at last, gasping for breath; my rationality slowly reasserted itself, and I realized with dismay that, once again, I was lost. I took a few steps forwards and looked around a corner: And there was 'Beauty's Room.' The door opened at once and a faint smell of lavender curled around me."

- pg 119, Beauty: A Re-telling of Beauty & the Beast by Robin Mckinley

What are you reading?