Yelen & Yelena. Gothick Fantasia, #1

Not All Curses Can Be Broken... Yelena, a hardworking laundress and pleasure-woman, is driven from her village by false accusations of dark sorcery, forced to leave behind everything she knows and loves. Her only recourse is the dark forest, from which a fungal rot is oozing and infecting all in its path. When the voices of the restless dead guide her to a cursed castle at the forest's heart, she discovers a forgotten tyrant from centuries before, still living in the form of a monster, much changed from the brute he used to be, and whose name is an echo of her own.
Yelen and Yelena quickly find common ground, companionship, and more - but the rot is never far away, and the curse has been waiting a long time to claim another victim... A Beauty & the Beast retelling for fans of WHAT MOVES THE DEAD by T. Kingfisher and MEXICAN GOTHIC by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.