Frostblood by Elly Blake (Frostblood Saga Book 1)

Book Review

Title: Frostblood by Elly Blake (Frostblood Saga Book 1)

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Rating: 5 Stars

The opening of Frostblood was interesting as we are introduced to Ruby Otrera, who is a Fireblood. In this world the Kingdom is run by the Frost King making Ruby’s very existence a crime that her mother has been trying to hide but Ruby has little control over her fire powers. Since the death of her grandmother and mentor she is been trying to control her fire without guidance and everything seems fine until soldiers enter their remote mountainside village looking for Ruby. They eventually find her and want to kill her but her mother steps in getting killed in the process before the soldiers burn the village and cart Ruby off to prison where she remains for months being psychologically tortured by them. However, one night two Frostblood, one a man named Arcus and the other a monk come to her asking for her help in taking down the King in exchange for her freedom and she agrees. The pair take Ruby to the Abbey where she is given a bath and medical treatment but she has issues since she hasn’t had time to grieve for her mother since being arrested.

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As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, Ruby is healing at the abbey when a fire breaks out, while she helps rescue one of the sisters trapped in the library and helps Arcus put out the fire but keeping his body temperature low with water some people still blame her for the fire in the first place since she is a Fireblood. Knowing she isn’t safe even there since someone threatened to take her back to prison she flees, after a few days of travelling she comes across a group of people who had their village burned by the soldiers just like she did and she thinks she might be safe with them. That is until she learns that there isa bounty on her head and no where in the Kingdom is going to be safe for her. Realising this and remembering she has a chance at taking down the Frost King she returns to the abbey but gets caught in a massive snowstorm on the way back. While she does manage to survive she is found by Arcus and one of the Brothers who have been searching for her since she left. While the synopsis did spoil the romance which is presumably between Ruby and Arcus, I still really liked the banter between the pair even while they hate each other but I hope the actual plot kicks in soon especially since Arcus’ mentioned that Ruby was going to be trained by Brother Thistle to control her fire.

As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, Ruby is settling back into life at the abbey especially after she learns what her true purpose is there. Brother Thistle believes that she might be the strongest fireblood in the Kingdom since she survive the prison that long as he explains the strongest firebloods are often taken to the King’s arena to fight which is probably why she was killed. He is beginning to teach her how to control her gift and she picks up the basics pretty easily much to the surprise of Brother Thistle and Arcus. While Brother Thistle is helping learn how to use her gift, Arcus begins training her as well but in how to strengthen her body and fight with a weapon that isn’t her gift which leads to masses of humorous banter between the pair. These two make an interesting pair since Arcus is completely closed off when he wants to be even though he lets this slip several times around Ruby because she gets on his nerve. While Ruby is easily angered but quite emotionally in ways that Arcus’ isn’t so I feel this balances them out quite well and they would work well as a romantic couple but there main issue is going to be learning to trust one another especially when they head to kill the King because they will be dependent on each other in order to survive.

As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, over the next few months Ruby continues to train gaining a lot of control over her fire but she still can’t summon it in the strength that there are going to need for their mission. Arcus eventually tries to make her angry enough to let go off her unconscious control but she only succeeds in setting his hood on fire, while this doesn’t hurt him it does bring back the worst memories he has of when he was burned horrifically. Arcus wears the hood and mask to hide the burn scars that over half of his face and it is in this moment Ruby realises that she has fallen in love with Arcus and despite confessing her feelings to him he seemingly rejects her. However, she soon learns that might not be the case as Arcus begins opening and softening to her but she is dealt another blow when Brother Thistle tells her that her mission of killing the King was a lie. He goes into some depth about prophecies and the power of the thrones as he believes that the Frost throne is cursed and the King might be cured if the throne is destroyed. This is a blow to Ruby since she has been training to kill the King as revenge for what happening to her mother and her village and now Brother Thistle and Arcus want her to set that aside which isn’t something I think she’s going to be able to do. Now only weeks remain before they set out on their journey and Ruby is no where near ready to take on the King and her relationship with Arcus is confusing her and clouding her judgement as well in some respects.

As we cross into the second half of the novel, Ruby’s time at the abbey is nearly up but she does manage to make some progress in her relationship with Arcus as the pair have come to truly trust one another. The kiss scene we get here was nothing short of absolutely perfection but it doesn’t last long as Ruby catches one of the brothers writing a letter and while she does try to stop him she doesn’t succeed. The Brothers send Arcus after him in the hopes he will stop the rogue Brother before it is too late but this hope doesn’t last long either. They soon learn that the rogue Brother has summoned the King’s soldiers and sold them out, Brother Thistle provides Ruby with an exit but Lack already informed the soldiers of the tunnel and they are waiting for Ruby when she emerges. She is captured and taken before the King who doesn’t see her as a warrior at all but she manages to learn that his throne leeches her power so she is unable to use her fire in his throne room which makes her task more difficult. In order to earn her entry into the arena she has to kill a beast which she does easily but not with cunning or skill but raw power and she is given the chance to compete for her freedom. In order so, she might be gaining an ally in Marcella, whose father is the right hand of the King and Marcella tells Ruby she knew Brother Thistle when he was in the King’s court and tells her to stay alive and that later down the line once she has proven herself against the champions she might be able to help in other ways.

As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, Ruby is put into the arena against one of the strongest champion’s the King has and at first things are evenly matched but the champion soon gets the upper hand and things don’t look good for Ruby. However, in the moment when it looks like the champion is going to win something happens to Ruby and I wasn’t sure what but it gave her the power and will to overpower the champion and kill him making her the first fireblood to ever win in the arena. Due to her winning she gains the rewards and freedoms that the other champions have despite being a fireblood, but this also puts her in close proximity to the King which she hates. The King knows something happened to her in the arena and wants to know what it was but Ruby doesn’t even know herself. In her next fight she sees a boy from her village being sent against the beasts with no way to fight so she steps in as does her challenger, the Captain who killed her mother. Despite Ruby’s best efforts Clay is killed so she just has the Captain left but she doesn’t want to kill him since his daughter is in the crowd and offers to have him pretend to be dead but he doesn’t take it. At that moment the feeling comes over her again and she kills him but this time she notices that the King’s power has less of an effect on her when she is using this new power but it doesn’t seem good at all since Ruby loses all of her humanity when it comes over her.

As we cross into the final section of the novel, we get to see the final showdown and get some jaw-dropping twists towards the end that I didn’t see coming. However, the opening it leaves for the second book wasn’t amazing as there are only two plot points that I felt could be developed on further but I am excited to see where they go. The most outstanding element of the final 100 pages was the relationship between Arcus and Ruby and excuse me when did Arcus get the right to utter words like those in the last line of the book because now I am madly in love with him and if anything happens to him I might scream. This was honestly a five star read for me despite me not being a major fan of young adult fantasy now but I highly recommend that everyone picks this up as soon as possible because you’re missing out on one of the best book boyfriends I have ever come across.

Buy it here:

Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com

Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com