Book Review
Title: Tears of Frost (Heart of Thorns #2)
Author: Bree Barton
Genre: YA/Fantasy/Romance
Rating: **
Review: After the dramatic showdown between Ange and Mia at the end of Heart of Thorns, I couldn’t wait to jump into Tears of Frost straight away. The opening of Tears of Frost refers to something called the Weeping Moon and we are counting down to it, but this is overshadowed by the letter from Ange to her sister who has awakened informing her she is being hunted by Zaga and other Dujia in order to bring her back to the river kingdom, whether this refers to Mia isn’t yet known but we jump to Pilar who is heading for the Ice Kingdom and is being tracked by several men, but she is hunting them, however, she intervenes when the men capture Quin and frees him, she also offers for him to come with her to the Ice Kingdom as they are both fugitives. This opening was far more gripping that the opening of Heart of Thorns and I can’t wait to see what happens. Pilar and Quin spends almost a week travelling to the border of the Ice Kingdom where we learn how far the River Kingdom has fallen under Zaga and Ange, at this point in time Mia is considered dead by everyone and no one seems to know about her mother’s revival. Pilar is heading to the Ice Kingdom, seeking a famous assassin of Dujia known as Snow Wolf in order to learn how to kill her mother and Ange without her magic as she has turned her back on it. Quin was surprising though as he is travelling to seek the help of the Snow Queen in order to save Dom who is the only person, he has left that he truly cares about and he had to leave him behind. By the time they reach the border Pilar has been training Quin to fight when they hear music which is something both Pilar and Quin greatly value and while Quin is suspicious, Pilar has to know who the player is.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, Pilar and Quin cross the border into the Ice Kingdom when they find boy playing the music only moments ago dead and when warriors show up, they are taken prisoner as they are going to be taken to the Snow Queen. During these moments we learn that Pilar’s father is supposedly the Snow Wolf and she is hoping that he will help her despite her being a Dujia, even though Dujia in the Snow Kingdom are protected, Dujia from other countries are not. With 21 days until the Weeping Moon, we get another letter from Ange to her sister telling her stories about the Kingdoms but she also seems to be hinting at the fact that Mia is alive and in the Ice Kingdom and I think she might even be the Snow Queen or close to the Queen. It turns out Mia is alive in a way, it seems that killing herself and then reviving herself has had some unpleasant side affects and she needs to find her mother following the clues to Luumia, the Ice Kingdom but then the trial ends. However, she meets an old man in a bar and she is sure he knows something and he leaves her with the advice of seeking out his niece. It turns out this man is Lord Dove, the same one that captured Quin and Pilar and his niece is the Snow Queen so these three might be reunited very soon. In Luumia, Mia meets Zai who tells her that the carving she founds in her coffin is actually part of a compass that Mia hopes will lead her to her mother and the answers she needs. However, Mia finds herself attracted to Zai but feels guilty of leaving Quin in the River Kingdom and remembers her promise to rescue him and she doesn’t know that he is a lot closer than she thinks and I can’t wait for them all to be reunited but she does harbour a lot of resentment towards Pilar which might makes things a little awkward.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, Zai explains that his friend Ville will be able to tell her about the compass but before she can even ask, she believes that she saw her mother in one of the alehouses and freaks out. Zai explains that a red haired woman came into his alehouse two days before Mia and she was heading for an audience with the Snow Queen and Mia asks him to take her there. In between this we are getting letter from Ange we she informs Mia that her hunters are in the Luumia at the Lagoon where Mia was only hours before which means they are closing in on her but Mia is determined not to return to the River Kingdom unless it is to destroy the moonstone and free Quin. We then switch back to Pilar and Quin who have been taking to the Snow Palace to meet with the Snow Queen but it seems like they are being tested first and the only reason I could come up with as to why is that the Snow Queen is aware of who their parents are and want to make sure they aren’t going to be betrayed by them. They are locked in a room where they are confronted by all manner of strange visions before one of the guards, Freyja comes to retrieve them and take them to the Queen. It turns out that Freyja is the Queen and the visions was a way for the Queen to determine why they were in her kingdom and what they wanted. When Quin and Pilar mention the ruby wren belonging to Mia the Queen corrects them in saying it belongs to Mia’s mother which makes me think that Wynna is in the castle and Mia isn’t far behind so several reunions are in sight but we can’t forget that Ange’s hunters are on Mia’s trial and also won’t be far behind.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, I was finding the pace was a lot slower in this book and it seemed to be suffering from the middle book syndrome in that it is spending a lot of time filling space between the first and last book without anything really happening. This very quickly changes when Pilar discovers that Quin has been carrying Ange’s moonstone with him the whole time and asks Freyja to view Quin’s memories and they find that Ange has been enthralling him and his mission was to find out who was loyal to her and who wasn’t. Freyja gives Pilar the tools she needs to find her father and is planning to ship Quin back to the River Kingdom and not even Pilar who has become close to Quin objects to this but we know Mia is on her way to Palace and things are going to get very interesting very soon especially when she learns of what Quin has done and I am not sure Mia will support him even though she has feelings for him and the plight of the Dujia and finding her mother in order to stop her sister is the most important thing to her right now. As Mia sails to the Snow Palace with Zai they are quickly joined by Ville and Nell where Mia is coming to gain back some of what she lost to her sister and Nell also teaches her about magic and how to balance it properly but I had a very bad feeling when Ville asks Mia to use her magic on him since we already know she isn’t in control of it right now and she should have informed Nell of that beforehand but she is being quite stubborn again.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, we still haven’t gotten to the real meat of the book yet but it is building. Mia uses her magic on Ville but almost ends up killing him but Nell manages to save his life, after he is kicking off the boat by Zai, Mia confesses to Nell that she can’t feel anything and Nell explains that this makes her the most dangerous as magic relies on feelings, both physical sensation and emotional feeling which Mia completely lacks right now. As she and Zai near their destination they do share a kiss but this is overshadowed when they arrive at the Palace and Zai calls her Mia instead of her assumed name Raven. When her mother appears, Mia learns that Zai was working for her mother the whole time and it all becomes too much for Mia in that moment as she faints. Meanwhile, Pilar isn’t having any luck finding her father but she does find Quin who was given the choice between returning to the River Kingdom or working in the fyre ice mines and he choose the mines. As both have had a bit to drink, they begin opening up as Pilar confesses that she doesn’t want to be alone anymore and Quin feels the same and much like Mia developing feelings for Zai, Pilar and Quin have softened to each other and they end up in bed together which isn’t going to sit well with Mia considering everything she has done has been for Quin and he’s shacked up with someone else although in his defence he does believe she is dead. Despite all of this we are no closer to the “real” action beginning and I was beginning to get bored so I hope something happens soon. Towards the end of this section of the novel, we learn more about Pilar’s past but it still wasn’t enough for me to care about her as a characters as she was really one dimensional in the first novel and not really present for a lot of this novel. However, we do learn that Griffin, Mia’s father has arrived to rescue Quin and Pilar but something doesn’t feel right about the situation and Pilar also learns that there is something wrong with the fyre ice and the mines are filled with blue stones not purple which means it must have been mixed with something in order to make it the way it is and I have a bad feeling about it.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, we get several revelations that are directly leading into the climax of this novel. We learn that Griffin is the Snow Wolf and Pilar’s father as he had a brief relationship with Zaga before he was enthralled by Wynna and came to love her meaning that Pilar, Mia, and Ange are also sisters. Mia learns that Wynna has started a relationship with Freyja and has no intention of returning to the River Kingdom or helping her in the way she wants and she isn’t sorry for it at all which hurts Mia more than anything. Mia is further hurt when she sees Quin with Pilar and he then reveals he has still been working for Ange as her power has grown and she didn’t need the moonstone anymore. Ange’s objective all along was to gather her sisters and work together but Pilar is furious at Quin’s continued betrayal and decides to work with Love Dove presumably on the side against Ange and Mia isn’t going to work with her because what she wants more than anything is to be herself again, to feel again. I was a little disappointed that it has taken almost 80% of the book to get into anything majorly interesting but I am excited to see how this novel concludes before moving into the finale, Soul of Cinders.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, we see the three sisters come to blows and realise something interesting about themselves and about each other. However, this is overshadowed when Quin rises up out of his own suffering to wield his own power against Ange who is the one that has hurt him the most but Pilar and Mia have also hurt him. It seems for a moment that he has killed Ange and allowed Mia and Pilar to escape as Nell comes to their rescue and is going to take them to the Shadowess. However, the final letter of the novel is from Quin to the sisters as he sets himself to become his father as he doesn’t want to suffer anymore but if that puts him against the sisters then he is going to do what needs to be done. Honestly, I was really infuriated with Tears of Frost as it took so long for the story to get interesting and then it erased all the good character work and relationship development for an easy ending that set men up against women when it would have been a lot more interesting and entertaining for certain men like Quin and Zai to stand by the women as they also understand suffering and for them to come together instead of creating more hate. Given the way this book ended unless something major happens in the final book then I am almost guaranteed not to enjoy it.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Also see: Heart of Thorns by Bree Barton
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