Shea Ernshaw’s The Beautiful Maddening shot to the top of my TBR the moment I heard about it. A standalone novel with ties to The Wicked Deep and Winterwood, it promises a story laced with enchantment, eerie atmosphere, and the kind of slow, creeping curse that makes her books so addictive. With hints of magical realism and romantic tension, this one feels like it could fill the same void The Unmaking of June Farrow left behind.
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Bookish Essentials
Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy / Romance/ Magical Realism
Series: Standalone Novel
Reading Age: 14+
Published: June 3, 2025
Pages: 304
From the Jacket of The Beautiful Maddening by Shea Ernshaw
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Shea Ernshaw comes a haunting romantic contemporary fantasy about a teen navigating her family’s love curse that blooms with their enchanted tulips every year.
Seventeen year-old Lark Goode wants only one thing: to escape her small town of Cutwater and the history of her family name. It’s a history that began during the Dutch tulip mania of 1636, when Lark’s ancestor stole the last remaining tulip bulbs and fled to America. But when the tulips bloomed on American soil, madness sprouted from their snowy white petals.
The madness was love.
Now, generations later, the Goodes remain cursed—the unnatural flowers outside their home causing locals to fall helplessly in love with anyone carrying Goode blood in their veins. While her brother embraces the strange power, Lark wants nothing more than to be free from it.
But when she meets a boy who seems unaffected by the family curse, Lark finds herself falling headlong into a feeling she’s spent her whole life trying to avoid. Yet, all curses and magic come with a price, and the town of Cutwater soon sinks into a dangerous sickness tied to Lark and the ill-fated tulips.
To save the town, Lark will need to sacrifice everything—even true love—to break the spell. Because in the Goode family, love has a way of destroying everything.
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Why The Beautiful Maddening is on My TBR
Shea Ernshaw has a gift for crafting atmospheric, standalone novels that linger in the mind long after the final page. The Beautiful Maddening promises to be no exception. Set in the same haunting universe as The Wicked Deep and Winterwood, this novel introduces us to Lark Goode, a seventeen-year-old yearning to escape her small town of Cutwater and the legacy of her family’s love curse.
The premise is both enchanting and unsettling: a centuries-old curse that causes locals to fall helplessly in love with anyone bearing Goode blood, all stemming from tulips brought over during the Dutch tulip mania of 1636. The idea of love as a form of madness, intertwined with a family’s dark history, is compelling. As Lark meets a boy seemingly unaffected by the curse, the story delves into themes of destiny, sacrifice, and the true cost of breaking free from one’s past.
Much like The Wicked Deep and Winterwood, The Beautiful Maddening is set in a world where magic seeps into the cracks of ordinary life—and I understand this book takes place in the same universe! Ernshaw’s novels are connected not by plot but by mood: small towns cloaked in mystery, generations of women bound by curses, and a slow, dreamlike atmosphere that’s both beautiful and unsettling. I’m wondering if this book will remind me of The Unmaking of June Farrow, which was so fantastic—there appears to be a similar sense of inherited madness, a family secret wrapped in time, and the ache of love that demands a terrible price.
You Might Also Like
- The Unmaking of June Farrow, by Adrien Young
- Wicked Like a Wildfire, by Lana Popovic
- Forgotten Cove, by T.G. Elsher
Save Shea Ernshaw’s The Beautiful Maddening to your TBR
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