Not Your Average Beauty (Enchanted Tales, #1)

A Beauty and the Beast inspired historical romance
For Stephen Pembroke, where beauty goes...death follows. With his legacy at stake, Stephen, Marquess of Barronsfield, makes a desperate proposal of marriage to his steward's new ward - and the plainest girl he has ever met. Funny that the bright, quick witted bookworm, isn't at all interested. But when she challenges him about his curse, he begins to wonder if this apparently ordinary woman is not as unremarkable as he believed.
After a lifetime living in the shadows of others, Rosalind is determined to use her arrival at Barronsfield as a fresh new start...but an insulting marriage proposal from an attractive, if moody marquess was not what she had in mind. Coming to Barronsfield has brought more than adventure. It's brought her face to face with her own curse...loneliness. But can she open her heart to a man who's own is so clearly closed?
Strange things are happening in Barronsfield, and Rosalind unwittingly finds herself in the sights of the real beast in Barronsfield-- and Stephen must decide if his growing love for Rosalind will be his salvation or her doom.

Michelle Helliwell was born and raised in Nova Scotia. She is now grown up enough to admit that when she started her undergraduate degree in Medieval History, she was pretty darned sure the past was going to be just like the fantasy novels she loved to read. So much for that. Having got over that disappointment, she simply turned her attention to mythic stories, fairy tales and Jane Austen. After some encouraging words from her grade 10 English teacher, she started writing her first novel, a time travel fantasy, when she was 15. She moved on to half-hearted attempts at something more literary, then nearly gave up on the writing all together until, in 2005, a co-worker put a romance novel in her hands and told her to "get over yourself". She did, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Like many authors, she juggles a full time job, family life, and (perhaps not like many authors) an addiction to Lego video games. Because sometimes, when you've been toiling over a manuscript for while, the best way to blow off some steam is to save the galaxy/Middle Earth/Bricksville/Gotham by smashing lots of things into little tiny bricks.