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This is not your grandmas fairy tale Brilliant The Washington Post

The Force of Such Beauty grips with the strength of an Olympian and holds it with the endurance of a marathoner to an ending that actually caught my breath not once but twice in quick successionThe Associated Press

One sunny afternoon in an idyllic kingdom by the sea a princess named Caroline pretends to sleep When her keepers strike up a card game Caroline sneaks into her maids car turns the key and drives right out of the palace Alone for the first time in years she gets on the next flightonly to land in the waiting arms of her guards As shes forcibly escorted back to her marble prison something in Caroline breaks for good Its not her first failed attempt and it wont be her last Caroline suspects that shell never escape But she might find a way to be free

Barbara Bourlands stunning third novel a phantasmagorical fable of love and marriage is her most ambitious and inventive book to date Inspired by the alleged escape attempts of reallife princesses The Force of Such Beauty is both the story of an idealistic young woman trapped by a corrupt promise and a deeply moving reminder that power structures around the world ultimately rest on the subjugation of womens bodies

A fascinating novel about bodies the way we use them and the way we break them Its one of several works to come out this year concerned with the appropriation of female beauty by powerful men and examines a harsh choice in the lives of women dubbed desirable by the patriarchal state do you participate or do you say noBourland is skilled at finding the noir in the everyday and illustrating the mechanisms of control that keep us in our placeCrime Reads Best Books of the Year So Far