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text 2015-10-29 05:00

Two 4 Thursday: Crown of Ice & To Bear An Iron Key

Grey Warden

Welcome to this week’s Two for Thursday Book Blitz #T4T presented by Month9books/Tantrum Books!

Today, we will be showcasing two titles that may tickle your fancy, and we’ll share what readers have to say about these titles!

You just might find your next read!

This week, #T4T presents to you:

Crown of Ice by Vicki L. Weavil and To Bear an Iron Key by Jackie Morse Kessler

Be sure to enter the giveaway found at the end of the post!

Crown-of-ice-Cover

ThyraWinther's seventeen, the Snow Queen, and immortal, but if she can't reassemble a shattered enchanted mirror by her eighteenth birthday she's doomed to spend eternity as a wraith. Armed with magic granted by a ruthless wizard, Thyra schemes to survive with her mind and body intact.

Unencumbered by kindness, she kidnaps local boy Kai Thorsen, whose mathematical skills rival her own. Two logical minds, Thyra calculates, are better than one. With time rapidly melting away she needs all the help she can steal. A cruel lie ensnares Kai in her plan, but three missing mirror shards and Kai's childhood friend, Gerda, present more formidable obstacles. Thyra's willing to do anything – venture into uncharted lands, outwit sorcerers, or battle enchanted beasts - to reconstruct the mirror, yet her most dangerous adversary lies within her breast.

Touched by the warmth of a wolf pup's devotion and the fire of a young man's desire, the thawing of Thyra's frozen heart could be her ultimate undoing.

WHAT READER’S ARE SAYING:

“Crown of Ice was great young adult fantasy novel. It offers an interesting and refreshing retelling of Snow Queen fairytale, but also so much more – realistic, confident and a bit bad heroine, magic, cute animals, subtle romance, …” – Dragana, The Paisley Reader

“Crown of Ice, is a luscious and fantastical retelling of the Snow Queen.” – Tina,Goodreads Reviewer

“A solid YA adventure with teenagers who learn so much about themselves, and each other. Even the expected happily ever after offers believable surprises that underscore the maturity and independence they each have gained.” –All Things Urban Fantasy

about-the-author

Vicki Weavil 11

Vicki Lemp Weavil was raised in a farming community in Virginia, where her life was shaped by a wonderful family, the culture of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and an obsession with reading. Since obtaining her undergraduate degree in Theatre from the University of Virginia, she’s gone on to acquire two masters degrees, living in places as diverse as New York City and rural North Carolina. She’s currently the library director for a performing an visual arts university. Vicki loves good writing in any genre, and has been known to read seven books in as many days. She enjoys travel, gardening, and the arts. Vicki lives in North Carolina with her husband, son, and some very spoiled cats.

Author Links: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Tumbler

TBAIK-Cover-v2

This richly-imagined universe from an acclaimed fixture of YA storytelling introduces a the young witch Bromwyn, a strong heroine who wields great power. Five years ago, Bromwyn refused a gift from the powerful fairy king. Tonight, on Midsummer, that decision comes back to haunt her. When her best friend Rusty picks the wrong pocket, he and Bromwyn are all that stand between their village and the rampaging fairies who have pushed through the World Door. If they cannot outwit the fairy king and queen before the World Door closes at sunrise, the friends will lose everything--their village, Bromwyn's magic, and Rusty's life.

WHAT READER’S ARE SAYING:

“If you want to get lost in magic and spend some time away from this grey, dreary world of reality, then look no further.” – Nicky Peacock, Author

“This was a really strong little book--a wonderful start to a brand new series, and I think it's safe to say I'll be looking for more of Jackie Morse Kessler's work!” – Kels, Literature Obsessed

“This is a great tale about the transitions in youth and of true friendship. It also depicts the emotional wounds caused from misjudgment and rejection.” – LuAnn, Rockin Book Reviews

about-the-author

JMK

Jackie Morse Kessler grew up in Brooklyn, NY, with a cranky cat and overflowing shelves filled with dolls and books. Now she’s in Upstate NY with another cranky cat, a loving husband, two sons, and overflowing shelves filled with dragons and books (except when her sons steal her dragons). She has a bachelor’s degree in English and American Literature, and yet she’s never read any Jane Austen (with or without zombies). She also has a master’s degree in media ecology. (The living study of technology and culture. Which is cool, but she still can’t figure out how to use Tweetdeck.)

Jackie spends a lot of time writing, reading, and getting distracted by bright and shiny new ideas. (She just came up with a new idea right now.) She has a weakness for chocolate and a tendency to let her cat take over her office chair.

Author Links: Website | Twitter| Facebook | Goodreads

Giveaway

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review 2014-11-10 11:20

Review: Crown of Ice

sunsetxcocktail

Read from November 08 to 10, 2014

DNFing at 28%. This was just awful. I just did not like it one little bit. I didn't like it from the start, I particularly disliked the main character. While books from the bad guy's point of view are always interesting to me...this one was not. I hated her tone, her personality. I frankly wanted to slap her.

It drove me up the wall how often she kept saying to herself whenever she started to feel emotion or anything "nope, not going to feel it. Not going to give into this. Let it go." (Other than the 'let it go' I'm paraphrasing) She's basically saying "conceal it don't feel it" but that constant 'Let it go' repeated over and over was just ridiculous. You're not Disney movie! If you're not going to break into song - don't keep repeating 'Let it go'. Its beyond annoying.

I had no sympathy for her whatsoever. Kai was flat and uninteresting. The only character I had the slightest bit of sympathy for was Gerda who had done nothing wrong other than be Kai's friend yet that made her an immediate target to be removed. Urg.

The style of the storytelling was uninteresting, and while I read 28% I really have no interest in reading any more. Disappointing as I was quite looking forward to this.

Crosses of a square for Holiday Bingo card - Ice Snow or Frost in Title

Bookish Bingo Holiday Card books-i-own-on-kindle Fairytales fantasy Magic my worst books ever Paranormal other Read in 2014 Retellings utter crap YA books

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review 2014-09-20 10:12

Crown of Ice by Vicki L. Weavil

Tanja @ Ja čitam, a ti?

As a kid I really was fortunate enough to get and read many of H. C. Anderson's fairy tales. I loved them and had a nice collection of them. But somehow "The Snow Queen" was never among them and it wasn't before Frozen exploded worldwide that I have heard of this tale. Now with Crown of Ice I think I've got to understand it better.

The first thing I noticed while reading Crown of Ice was how much it stick to the real story. There were a lot of new elements, which I'll mention later on, but basic is there. We've got a boy and a girl, Gerda and Kai, who are a bit older than in fairy tale. But they've been friends forever and during that time Gerda saw Kai as her future and her safe harbor, something that was written in start. At the same time Kai even though incredibly smart still aware that it's likely that he will stay in village despite his desires to go to University. It was all as planed until our Thyra returns to their lives, but now as the Snow Queen and lures Kai into her castle where he is bound to help her. They have little time and lots of things to figure out.

Despite the base that was somewhat similar to the original this story presents some fresh elements as well. Even though the cover will tell you different story, Crown of Ice was dark and at moments really cruel. The line between good and evil was always present and while I could understand Thyra and her behavior I couldn't connect with her at the same time. That's actually the main reason why I couldn't enjoy this one fully, but everything except that was nicely done. I loved how the story was even unpredictable even though the background was familiar to me.

All in all, even though story was a bit low at moments, it still was nicely organized and well written.

Rating: 3.5 stars.

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review 2014-09-13 01:51

Snow Queen? No, Snore Queen

Howdy YAL!

You’d think with the success of Frozen that there’d be more YA Snow Queen retellings. But Crown of Ice was only one of the only few that I’ve seen.

That being said.

I didn’t finish it.

Really, this has not been my week with books. It’s like everything that looks good ends of sucking.

Why I should’ve loved this plot?

There’s so many reason The Snow Queen, anti-herorines, quests, but none of them were successfully used by this book. And to be honest, this makes me sad.

I think I’ll break up the review by talking about these three things:

1) The Snow Queen

The actual fairytale is a bit too moralistic and like a great deal of Anderson’s tales are, but it has lots of potential. Look what Disney did with Frozen and I really liked Weavil’s blurb. That (not the horrible cover) was what made me pay any attention to this book.

But the actual take of the fairytale on paper…sort of a snore.

Which is shouldn’t be. But in the fifty percent I read, it wasn’t that different or that unique.

Yes, some extremely cheesy bits were added and the audience was info dumped with pieces of plot information, but it didn’t add to the story. It just made me feel like this book was written for overgrown fourth graders with hormones.

In other words, at times the prose seemed a bit condescending.

Yes, if you info dump heavily and have 1D characters your writing can seem condescending. Sad but true.

Oh, I didn’t talk about the 1D characters yet?

Well, it sort of goes with the info dumping. I mean, if your characters are going to robotically tell you everything you need to know, then they’re probably not going to be that developed.

I’ll probably dive more into just how bad the narrator was in the second topic, but the side characters were not peaches either. Being 1D affectedme from having any sympathy towards anyone.

And to be honest, I don’ t like being apathetic about books. Especially Snow Queen retellings.

Sigh…I guess, I’ll just have to let it go.

2) The Anti-Herorine

Or try the anti-likable character.

I really tried. I really tried. But Thyra was not likable like Elsa. Or even like Regina when it’s a halfway decent episode of Once Upon a Time. She’s just an awful YA heroine who happens to mention she’s the snow queen every other page, even though she’s NOT a queen.

Well, not the queen in the sense you think of a queen.

I don’t know about you, but when I think of a queen I think of someone in charge not someone’s minion.

Okay, to give Weavil some credit, the puppet master did somewhat play a role in the original. But come on, here he only serves the purpose to make Thyra a sympathetic character.

And she’s not.

She’s absolutely not.

I mean, how can I feel for a character who so callously causes a destructive blizzard to destroy one’s town and then lies to said victim to keep them at her ice palace?

Seriously, what do you expect me to do hug her?

No. This is what I wanted to do to Thyra.

Thyra’s backstory (while sad) doesn’t even make her likable. Not even her sense of self preservation.

I just did not like her.

There’s no redeeming quality there.

It would’ve been one thing too, if Weavil didn’t want me to sympathize her. But the prose is clearly slanted in such a way that suggests that I should like this character.

My suggestion: create a horrible half sister who’s ten times worse than Thyra, then maybe I’ll like her (hey, it worked for Regina).

3) Quests

There’s nothing like a good quest to get the blood pumping and the pages to fly by. Unfortunately, I’ve seen better quests in children’s programs.

First, we must talk about the chatty Cathy reindeer.

No, one likes talking reindeer. Talking snowmen, yes. Not talking reindeer.

Just watch The Santa Clause 2 if you need any further proof to why talking reindeers are not likable. Especially when they’re named after the Dark One’s son.

To be honest, Bae sort of creeped me out. It was like, hey there’s a talking reindeer that’s going to serve as one of the quest buddies and he was just sort of half baked. And for a talking reindeer, that’s saying a lot.

The whole quest had a half baked sense to it. Take for example,how math was suppose to be an answer to these characters’ problems.

Yeah, I got that but…you never explained it.

I’m not a numbers person. Why do you think I went to law school not veterinary school? But I did want some more information into how math played a role to this puzzle other than a lackluster explanation that I got. I was actually pretty excited in the flashback when Thrya talked about her past math encounter with Kai. That could’ve been a really cool plot line to explore.

Le sigh.

But no.

I think this one might’ve been a bit of a downer for me because I had a lot of hope for it. It wasn’t exactly terrible. Apathetic feelings aside, it had lots of potential. But having potential and being a good book are two different things.

Overall Rating: Tough but I’m going to go in the C-/D+ area. While I liked a lot of the things Crown of Ice had to offer, in the end it wasn’t for me.

Source: howdyyal.wordpress.com/2014/09/13/the-snow-queen-no-the-snore-queen-crown-of-ice-by-vicki-l-weavil

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review 2014-09-12 15:13

This is how ya fantasy should be written

Bookworm Dreams

I have a weak spot for fairy tale retellings, especially when they promise to add something new to the story. Crown of Ice gives an unique twist to the Snow Queen, fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen, because it is told from different point of view. We have an honor to listen to the story from the lips of the Snow Queen herself. You know, I always imagined her like a tall, cold, serious woman. So imagine my surprise when at the beginning of Crown of Ice she starts with:

My name is Thyra Winther, and I am seventeen years old. I have five months to restore the mirror or suffer the fate of my predecessors.

The story is probably familiar to you already. Snow Queen kidnaps a young man called Kai and promises to let him go if he ~~makes a word ‘eternity’ from a pieces of ice~~ helps her assemble the pieces of magic mirror. Kai’s childhood friend Gerda goes on a quest to get him back and encounters a lot of different people on the way.

Who is Snow Queen?
Why is arranging those pieces of ~~ice~~ mirror so important?
What is Kai doing while Gerda is traveling?

All of these questions are left mostly unanswered in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale. If you ever wondered about them, you should read a Crown of Ice.

How much is Crown of Ice similar to original fairytale? This is a tough question to answer. I wanna say very similar, but the Crown of Ice is also very different because of an unique new perspective to the story and characters. Snow Queen spies on Gerda while Gerda is traveling so we will read about her view of all events that happened to Gerda, but also there is so much more going on here. Vicki L. Weavil really gave life to all characters. While I was only able to connect to Gerda in original story, here I felt close to them all.

Since Disney’s animated movie Frozen in some way deals with Snow Queen theme, some of you might wonder how much is Crown of Ice similar to Frozen? Not much. Of course, Snow Queen has power over snow and ice but that’s where similarities between Elsa and Thyra end.

I would love to say that nothing reminded me of Frozen in Crown of Ice, but there was one detail that bothered me through the whole book. Thyra has a saying /motto she uses often:

“This does not touch me. Such words hold no power. Let them fade. Let it go.”
“This can’t touch me. Release these thoughts. Let it go.”

One part is always the same. Sound familiar?

And whenever I hear that line I have to start to sing the song… [image source]

Another very important question when book is from a first person point of view is the character of narrator. And I can find only word of praise for Thyra . Aren’t you sick of main characters who whine how they are just plain looking or nothing special? Thyra’s not like that. She’s confident and sure in herself. She knows she is better than any other human out there.

“I’m smart, inventive and willing to save your little friend. Are you coming with me, or do you prefer to cower in the palace?”

How many times did you read a heroine say something like this to a hero/male in young adult novels? Thyra does not cover. She is determined to succeed. But also she is not perfect and sometimes even lies to achieve her goals. Very human and realistic. I liked her even when her thoughts were not good.

I watch Ravn toy with the weapon and consider freezing those long, tapering fingers until they blacken and fall from his hands.

Reading about a person who knows her own worth was so refreshing. I am bored of Mary Sue heroines that are dominating young adult fiction.

tagline-crown-of-ice-by-vicki-l-weavil

I have written so much, but I feel like I only talked about the tip of the iceberg or in this case the tip of theCrown of Ice. There are so many other things I loved in this novel that are worth mentioning:

Wonderful descriptions of snow
Pets with attitude that add spunk and sass (and of course cuteness) to the story. There is one omg-he’s-so-cute wolf and one talking reindeer.
Creepy atmosphere in the Snow Queen’s castle with ghosts of her predecessors haunting the halls…
Romance. Subtle. Slow burn. takes time to develop. Hits all the right buttons.
Thyra and Kai are excellent mathematicians. Nerds rule!
How Vicki L. Weavil talked about an education as a life goal.
And the ending! Beautiful. Just a right amount of things left for us to imagine. Not a cliffhanger, but everything is not concluded either. There could be sequel writen. But I hope there will not be. Because it’s perfect like this. Leave me to wonder and to dream!

If I have written ALL of my thoughts about these topics, this review would be so long even I would feel too lazy to read it ever again.

In The End…

Crown of Ice was great young adult fantasy novel. It offers an interesting and refreshing retelling of Snow Queen fairytale, but also so much more – realistic, confident and a bit bad heroine, magic, cute animals, subtle romance, … I warmly recommend it to all ya fantasy fans.

Looking for something similar? Try Graceling by Kristin Cashore. Why? Because heroine is also confident and kicks ass. Also, similar dynamic between characters and general ‘feel’ of the book.

Young Adult Fantasy Kick-ass Heroine YA Fantasy romance

Source: www.bookwormdreams.com/book-review-crown-of-ice-by-vicki-l-weavil