Review: Heart of Ice by K.M. Shea

Heart of Ice by K.M. Shea
The Snow Queen #1

Publishing Date: December 17th, 2015

My Rating: 3/5 - interesting plot with insta-romantic interest and a Mary Sue main character

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I keep hoping I'll find a hidden gem in all those years-old books that I'm going through right now, but it's just. Not. Happening.



Rakel, our main character, has been in exile for years. She's able to do magic, a gift that's met with misgivings. It's only when magic-users threaten to destroy her country that she decides to break out of her gilded cage and begins to act.

To tell the truth, I didn't hate this book. It was interesting, and since I love the original snow queen fairy tale (which this story had little in common with, to be fair), I thought this one would be a four-star read at least.

Well, as it turned out, not so much. The leader of the opposing army, Farrin Graydim, quickly becomes intrigued by Rakel after the first time he meets her and it begins to develop into not-quite-love-but-almost very quickly. Rakel and Farrin meet - what, four times? - in the book, but he's willing to ignore orders for her by the third-or-so time? What??

"How intriguing." "That she's so beautiful?" "That she's skilled."

Which brings me to my next point - Rakel is a Mary Sue. She has unbelievable magical powers, is able to do everything with them, even though she's self-taught, which is apparently a great feat and she looks absolutely stunning. The men adore her, and her only flaw seems to be that she has very poor self-confidence and is kind of oblivious sometimes.

"All the free-study in the world shouldn't get her to that sort of skill level."

Ugh, come on.

And since we're talking about being a Mary Sue, so is Phile, the so-called Robber Maiden.

Additionally, there were a few awkward wordings in there. "Dark-colored hair"? What color is that? Why not just, "dark hair"?

Altogether, the book was a bit underwhelming, but not bad. I'll be reading the second part, though if there were any more parts after that I might not have.