The Advent of Lena, A tale of Beauty and the Beast

General Fiction, Romance

By Neil M Campbell

Publisher : Neil M Campbell

ABOUT Neil M Campbell

Neil M Campbell
I live on the west coast of Scotland, where I do landscape gardening and walk a lot amid splendid maritime and mountain scenery. I've always loved to write, finding it spiritually, psychologically and indeed physically beneficial. 

Description

Unhappy Beast sets out to involve the shining soul of Beauty in his spiritual rebirth . . .
When a stranger in a bar loudly comments on her appearance, Chloe Lambert can only assume that the remark which cut her to the bone was for him simply a casual aside. Park Delafield, however, struck down for his savagery by a friend of Chloe's,  is visited in his humiliation by the insight that only she can save him from remaining the despicable individual he has become. 
He sets out to win Chloe but she, bewildered by his attentions and repelled by his egotism, wants no part in his quest. Until his persistence, combined with her own curiosity about his true personality and motives, soften her distrust of his sincerity. Warily she allows him into her life, thus seeding hurricanes of self-discovery, reckless commitment, and searing betrayal through which all involved journey toward disaster . . . or liberation and redemption. 

A few years ago, one of my sons and I were having a midday drink in a City of London tavern. Some fellow customers, lunch break evidently over, started to head our way ― making for the exit, which happened to be close by us. As we stood aside to let the group filter by, my attention was snagged by the appearance in passing of the ugliest female I had ever seen in my life. The words just came out ― too loud: "How ugly is that?" "She heard you, Dad, she heard you," my son protested, appalled, and disgusted. And I knew she’d heard me ― I had seen it in her stricken eyes as she passed. I never will forget that look. The incident will haunt me to my dying day. I often wonder how she is ― how life has treated her, how she’s coping with the burden of her looks. I hope she’s found love and happiness, someone to adore her. This novel is a tribute to her, that stranger, and personal act of exorcism.

What an utterly brilliant novel - an unique take on the Beauty and the Beast fable. In the hands of the immensely talented Neil Campbell,the story and the characters resonate with readers in a very personal and intense manner. Amazon Reviewer.

Who's Beauty? Who's Beast? A wonderful twist to a classic tale. Amazon Reviewer

If we are to believe that "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", then The Advent of Lena is not a tale about Beauty and the Beast, but the tale about beauty and one man's attempt at realizing it, within himself and in others.

The Advent of Lena is a wonderfully written novel, with charm, character and wit. It's not just a Disney fairy tale - it is an honest take on a man searching for redemption, after an epiphany that the only path to his salvation goes through a woman he finds most repulsive. Amazon Reviewer