ARC Review of Frostblood
/8 Comments/by SuzanneSeries: ,
on January 10th 2017
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction
Pages: 384
Source: Netgalley
Amazon
Goodreads
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
Goodreads Synopsis:
Seventeen-year-old Ruby is a fireblood who must hide her powers of heat and flame from the cruel frostblood ruling class that wants to destroy all that are left of her kind. So when her mother is killed for protecting her and rebel frostbloods demand her help to kill their rampaging king, she agrees. But Ruby’s powers are unpredictable, and she’s not sure she’s willing to let the rebels and an infuriating (yet irresistible) young man called Arcus use her as their weapon.
All she wants is revenge, but before they can take action, Ruby is captured and forced to take part in the king’s tournaments that pit fireblood prisoners against frostblood champions. Now she has only one chance to destroy the maniacal ruler who has taken everything from her and from the icy young man she has come to love.
Fast-paced and compelling, Frostblood is the first in a page-turning new young adult three-book series about a world where flame and ice are mortal enemies—but together create a power that could change everything.
My Review:
Elly Blake’s exciting debut novel Frostblood tells the story of a young woman named Ruby Otrera. Ruby is what is known as a Fireblood, which means that she possesses unique magical abilities that center on fire and heat. Rather than celebrate her powers and use them as she would wish to, however, Ruby has been raised to conceal and suppress her fire. Why? Because the land Ruby lives in is ruled by Frostbloods. Frostbloods possess similar magical abilities to Firebloods; their powers are just ice rather than flame-based. The Frostbloods also have a king who has a fierce hatred of Firebloods and wants to see them all destroyed. Thus it is for Ruby’s own protection and survival that her family has never encouraged her to use her magic.
That all changes, however, when the Frost King sends men to Ruby’s village because they suspect a Fireblood is living there. When someone betrays Ruby and reveals her to be the Fireblood, the King’s men end up killing Ruby’s mother when she stands in their way to protect her daughter. In her anguish, Ruby unleashes her fire power on those who murdered her mother and ends up arrested and taken to prison. Her stay in prison, however, is short-lived because a band of rebel Frostbloods come and break her out on the condition that she join them on their mission to kill the ruthless Frost King. They believe that she alone, with her unique fire powers, can successfully complete this mission. Because she desperately wants revenge against the man whose orders got her mother killed, Ruby agrees to be their assassin. The rest of the novel follows Ruby as she first learns to master her powers in preparation for her mission and then later as she finds herself captured and imprisoned by the Frost King and forced to participate in his deadly tournaments, all the while biding her time and hoping for an opportunity to destroy him before he destroys her.
What I Loved about Frostblood:
One of the favorite parts of Frostblood was the use of Fire vs Ice. Fire and ice imagery has always appealed to me so as soon as I saw that the magic in Frostblood was based on these elements, I knew I had to read the book.
As soon as I started reading and watching the Frostbloods and Ruby the Fireblood wield their magic, I was immediately captivated. The magic Elly Blake has created in her Frostblood world is not only mesmerizing and darkly beautiful, but it also vividly brings to mind one of my all-time favorite poems (quoted below for those who haven’t read it):
“Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire. I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate.
To say that for destruction ice. Is also great.
And would suffice.”
–“Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost
Aside from the incredible use of the fire and ice imagery, I also loved the epic fight scenes that Blake gives us when the Frost King captures Ruby and forces her to participate in his tournaments. The competitions are truly badass. They are basically death matches between Firebloods and Frostbloods, but really can be between anyone or anything the King sees fit to pit against each other for his own amusement because at various times, we see him pit champions against ferocious animals and other assorted beasts. The fights are sick and often pretty graphic, but they are also a pure adrenaline rush to read. When I read them, especially the fights where Ruby was a participant, I kept envisioning gladiators fighting in the Colosseum in Ancient Rome.
Where I was Conflicted:
As much as I enjoyed these elements of Frostblood, there were still a few areas where I was conflicted. Surprisingly enough, the main character Ruby is one of them. I really did like Ruby. She’s spunky and shows great determination against seemingly impossible odds, and I also had tremendous sympathy for her since her mother was murdered right in front of her. As much as I liked her though, I did think she was a little cliché at times. The feistiness and fiery temper seemed a somewhat predictable description for someone who basically has fire running through their veins.
I also found her frustrating. She’s supposed to be mastering her powers and admittedly isn’t making great progress with her training, but yet she keeps letting herself get distracted by the mysterious Frostblood named Arcus. I won’t go so far as to call it love at first sight since they seem to hate each other when they first meet, but considering what she is preparing to risk her life to go do, there is definitely way too much flirtation going on. In that sense, she reminded me of Mare from Red Queen, who I also wanted to throttle for being more focused on her potential love interest than on her mission.
Speaking of Arcus, in some ways I actually found him to be a more compelling and less predictable character than Ruby. Although he starts out as seemingly cliché with his frosty and arrogant manner, we soon learn (and so does Ruby) there’s a lot more to Arcus than initially meets the eye. He’s much more human and vulnerable than the rest of his Frostblood counterparts seem to be. I don’t want to give too much away about Arcus since he does play a major part in the novel’s climax, but I will say that as much as I disliked the flirting at inopportune moments early in the novel, the more I got to know more about Arcus, the more I liked him and the more supportive I felt toward his budding relationship with Ruby. The gratuitous flirting definitely still irritated me, but overall I was very intrigued by the idea of the two of them together, especially since he’s a Frostblood and she’s a Fireblood and they should be mortal enemies.
I think where I was actually most conflicted about this book is that while I thoroughly enjoyed it, I still wished it had been more of a unique read. Maybe I’ve just read way too many YA fantasy novels recently, but throughout my reading of Frostblood, I kept thinking “Wait, didn’t Mare in Red Queen go through that too? Wait, this reminds me of Britta in Ever the Hunted who is scorned because of her magical powers”, etc. It’s still a great read that I would recommend to pretty much any YA fantasy lover; I just wish Ruby had been more of a standout from all of the other YA heroines. To Blake’s credit though, she does start to introduce a more unique element towards the end of the novel – the fact that Ruby does seem to have a bit of darkness within her. We start to see it early on in Frostblood in her intense need for revenge against those who killed her mother, but that darkness takes on an entirely different dimension in the closing chapters of the story. I thought it was fascinating to see a heroine grapple with such an inner darkness and I’m really hoping that Blake will continue to explore this aspect in the second novel of the series. I think that’s the more unique angle that would really take this series to the next level for me.
Who Would I Recommend Frostblood to?
I’d recommend Frostblood to anyone who likes a fast-paced YA fantasy read. Frostblood was a quick and easy read for me. I was able to knock it out in just a couple of days and, even though, I wished for a little more originality at times, I was still entertained by the story the entire time. I think readers who are newer to the genre would especially enjoy it, especially if you enjoyed books like Red Queen or Ever the Hunted.
Rating: 3.5 stars
About Elly Blake
Elly Blake loves fairy tales, old houses, and owls. After earning a BA in English literature, she held a series of seemingly random jobs, including project manager, customs clerk, graphic designer, reporter for a local business magazine, and library assistant. She lives in Southwestern Ontario with her husband, kids and a Siberian Husky mix who definitely shows Frostblood tendencies.
Her work is represented by Suzie Townsend of New Leaf Literary & Media.
2017 Reading and Blogging Goals
/18 Comments/by SuzanneHappy New Year, everyone! It’s that time of year when most of us are reflecting on our lives and making resolutions for what we hope to do differently in the upcoming year. In addition to a few personal resolutions I’ve made (working on my organizational skills, eating healthier, and exercising more), I’ve also come up with the following list of reading/blogging goals that I hope to accomplish in 2017.
READ AT LEAST 60 BOOKS IN 2017.
I’ll be tracking this goal through my Goodreads challenge. I used to only manage to read about 40 books per year before I started blogging, but starting my blog this past year actually pushed me to read nearly 70 books in 2016. I’m hoping therefore that 60 will be a manageable number as I continue my blogging adventures in 2017.
WRITE AT LEAST 52 BOOK REVIEWS FOR MY BLOG.
If my first goal goes as planned, this goal should be manageable since I’m basically aiming for an average of one review per week.
PUT A DENT IN MY ENORMOUS TBR PILE.
In order to facilitate this goal, I’ll be taking part in the Beat The Backlist challenge, which is hosted by NovelKnight. Here’s the list of books I hope to knock off my TBR by participating in this challenge.
- A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin
- A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab
- The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
- Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
- Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
- An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
- We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
- Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
- Landline by Rainbow Rowell
- The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
- A Shadow Bright and Burning by Jessica Cluess
- Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven
- We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
- Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley
- A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
- Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple
- Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova
- When We Collided by Emery Lord
- Illuminae by Amie Kaufman
- Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
- A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
- Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
- In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware
- The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
WRITE MORE DISCUSSION POSTS AND ORIGINAL CONTENT.
This is something I haven’t been very successful at thus far in my blogging journey. I post regularly and participate in a few weekly features hosted by fellow bloggers, but I fall into these ruts where it feels like everything I want to talk about in discussion posts has already been discussed by dozens of other bloggers and so I talk myself out of posting anything. So yeah, I need to get better about just going for it and putting my thoughts out there.
KEEP MY BLOGGING EXPERIENCE FUN.
In this goal, what I’m seeking is to maintain a balance between reading what I want to read when the mood hits me versus the ARCs I need to read for review purposes. Why this goal? Well, late last fall, I requested quite a few books from Netgalley assuming that I’d probably only get approved for a couple of them. Needless to say I was rather shocked when I got approved for almost all of them and then realized that at least three of them had a publication date of January 10th. With the holidays upon me, I got pretty stressed out about the prospect of having to quickly read that many books and put together that many reviews in such a short time. It felt like I was back in college again, cramming for finals. (I’m actually still trying to finish the last book right now since the book is due out on Tuesday.) Plus, in addition to the pressure of the deadline, I also didn’t have time to read anything that I wanted to read so December wasn’t that fun of a blogging month for me.
That stress is most definitely not something that I care to repeat so my goal for 2017 is to pay more attention to publication dates and choose my ARC requests more wisely so that I don’t unnecessarily stress myself out and, most importantly, so that I leave myself time for pleasure/mood reading.
INTERACT MORE WITH THE BOOKISH COMMUNITY.
The past few months I’ve tried to make it a goal to visit other book blogs and comment whenever I have time. I know how happy it makes me when I log into my own blog and see I have comments to respond to, so I just really want to continue to do my part to be supportive of the community and make other bloggers feel that same sense of joy.
I also want to improve my twitter presence. I follow a number of bloggers but because I can be such an awkward potato at times, I rarely ever talk to them. I did participate in a few twitter chats in 2016, which were a lot of fun, so I hope to do a few more in 2017 and to just be better about interacting overall. Even being an awkward potato, I still managed to cross over the 500 follower mark on twitter, so for 2017, I’m hoping to make it to 1,000 followers.
* * * * *
Well, that’s what I have so far anyway. I think (hope!) they’re challenging yet reasonable goals. Do we share any of the same reading or blogging goals for 2017? If not, what are your goals for this year?
Waiting on Wednesday: Spotlight on Shimmer and Burn by Mary Taranta
/20 Comments/by Suzanne“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, which encourages fellow bloggers to spotlight upcoming releases that we’re excited about.
My “Waiting On” Wednesday selection for this week is Shimmer and Burn by Mary Taranta. Hopefully I’m not just judging a book by its cover here, but I definitely have to confess that the gorgeous cover is the number one reason why I was initially interested in this book. After reading the synopsis though, my enthusiasm has only grown because it sounds like it’s going to be a very exciting read. I also really like the premise of one sister trying to do whatever she can to save the other sister.
Shimmer and Burn
by Mary Taranta
Publication Date: August 8, 2017
From Amazon:
To save her sister’s life, Faris must smuggle magic into a plague-ridden neighboring kingdom in this exciting and dangerous start to a brand-new fantasy duology.
Faris grew up fighting to survive in the slums of Brindaigel while caring for her sister, Cadence. But when Cadence is caught trying to flee the kingdom and is sold into slavery, Faris reluctantly agrees to a lucrative scheme to buy her back, inadvertently binding herself to the power-hungry Princess Bryn, who wants to steal her father’s throne.
Now Faris must smuggle stolen magic into neighboring Avinea to incite its prince to alliance—magic that addicts in the war-torn country can sense in her blood and can steal with a touch. She and Bryn turn to a handsome traveling magician, North, who offers protection from Avinea’s many dangers, but he cannot save Faris from Bryn’s cruelty as she leverages Cadence’s freedom to force Faris to do anything—or kill anyone—she asks. Yet Faris is as fierce as Bryn, and even as she finds herself falling for North, she develops schemes of her own.
With the fate of kingdoms at stake, Faris, Bryn, and North maneuver through a dangerous game of magical and political machinations, where lives can be destroyed—or saved—with only a touch.
* * * * *
I’d love to hear what upcoming book releases you’re waiting on this Wednesday? Leave me your link in the comments below and I’ll stop by and check out your WoW selection for this week. 🙂