FrostBlood
Elly Blake
17-year old Ruby is a FireBlood in a world of passionless FrostBloods. After the King’s soldiers kill her beloved mother and stick her in prison for a year, Ruby is ready for revenge. Even if that revenge comes by way of making friends with some renegade FrostBloods and plotting to melt the throne (literally).
The language in this was passionless. For a novel about fury and rage being key to power, the text itself didn’t inspire that in me. Perhaps there was too much detail for me? It felt like clinical observation by Ruby the whole time. Ruby’s reponse to ‘Die in pain’ was too cold and clinical to something that was spat out in fear.
There wasn’t enough of a twist in this novel for me. It was more like a slight turning of the head, and more could have been done with it. The same went for the cruelty of the King – please tell me less about it, and show me more. I couldn’t have cared less whether Ruby died or not, and that’s not a good characteristic to have in a main character.
For a comparative novel, I’d suggest Blackthorn and Grim because there is a similar theme of revenge vs healing going on in there. If you’re looking for a very similar magic offering, perhaps Red Queen or the Poison Study trilogy could be up your alley.
I’d recommend it for teenage readers, rather than YA readers despite the ‘heated kisses’ because there isn’t enough depth and surprise to hold an older reader’s attention in my opinion. 3 stars from me.
Hachette Australia | 1st January 2017 | AU $19.99 | Paperback
I was left underwhelmed by this novel. There just seemed to be nothing outstanding about it. The characters were a bit wussy, I couldn’t get inside anyone’s heads and Pearl was an inconsistent narrator who was mainly irritating for me to read.
What I liked about this novel was that there were multiple truths and lies for both Scarlett and the reader to unravel. However, it seemed that we could have benefitted from some of Tella’s point of view, because surely she had more insight than Scarlett. And I don’t think it would have wrecked the ending if it had been written sensitively. Also, despite what shouldn’t have been a linear narrative, that’s how it read because Scarlett couldn’t see in front of her nose.
The principle of this novel was nifty, but the execution lead to a very slow plot line that didn’t keep my attention very well. I picked it up several weeks apart, and eventually only finished it because the publication date was coming up!
The whole time I was reading this novel, I was disgusted with Livia and her character development. Come on girl, grow some spine! Oh wait, no, you have grown one… and you getting to that point was completely unexpected and unrealistic. The ‘Incident’ that is referred to the whole way through should help with this development, but I just felt frustrated rather than intrigued.
Maybe I missed something major by not having read the first book in the series. I felt like I had been dropped into a very slow plot that nevertheless didn’t build anything for me, and then the second half couldn’t get my attention despite moving more quickly.
The interlocking character storylines at first seem like they have nothing in common. For the majority of the novel, you wonder why the author has even paired the two together, but eventually it becomes clearer and this is very apparent by the second book. The blurb on the novel put me off reading it for a long time – but not long enough with no release date of the final novel available!
A fantasy twist on a bullying story, Frank is a character that you will love and want to protect in the beginning. By the end, you might wonder a bit where her spunk has come from, but I personally think it rubbed off from Nick. An innocuous missing cat can start off a range of interworld connections that lead to a better end than could have been imagined.
Personally, I think the blurb on GoodReads gives far too much away. You start to get inklings of something being wrong with this generation of Queens as you are reading, and to have them all knocked away before you even start reading would be a serious detriment to your enjoyment of the novel.
Sabriel has always been an established Abhorson in my eyes, but here we see Lirael grow into what she should be. When she returns to the Glacier where she grew up, it is obvious that there has been some serious character growth coming on. We get to see more of that in this novel too, as well as Sameth (who I hold a personal soft spot for) and Nick.