Beauty is a re-imagining of the classic Sleeping Beauty tale, except with a lot of spanking, dubiously consensual sex (cast in the best light; in the worst, it's serial rape), and hardcore D/s total power exchange. 
 I'm very apathetic about this series. On the one hand, it certainly has its share of titillation for those who enjoy BDSM fantasies, and there's both a fair amount of creativity and a fair amount of truth in Rice's exploration of it. I'd go so far as to venture that Rice had firsthand experience in the scene before she wrote this . . . though not very much. 
 On the other (much larger) hand, the two egregious issues with this book are a total lack of believable setup and a near-total lack of believable character development/motivation. 
 The setup issue comes down to how flimsy the excuse was for getting the princes and princesses into their servitude. I won't spoil it for you, but trust me, it's ridiculous. 
 The development/motivation issue is a significant problem that consistently pulled me from the narrative, most especially at the end of the book. There were some moments that really hit the nail on the head, such as the breaking point of Beauty's secondary love interest (an enslaved prince). But most of it felt artificial, railroaded, as if Rice was familiar with the motions of BDSM but not the *e*motions or thought processes of a submissive. This led to a lot of eye-rolling on my part, because I felt like she was writing a self-indulgent fantasy rather than a realistic one that I could buy into and enjoy along with her. 
 Conclusion? Read them if you're bored. Borrow or swap for them; don't buy them. They're moderately entertaining, despite the flaws, but I suspect much of the enjoyment comes out of the way she twists a beloved childhood story into something naughty.