Jus Accardo

Serpent and Dove meets These Hollow Vows in this all-new YA fantasy series about a druid and the Fae royal she’s been tasked to protect.

Omen of Ice

J Nieto

So, I'm definitely not the demographic for this book. I know that, and I knew it since I began reading it, but I kept on pushing through it for the Owlcrate read-along. I promised myself that if the story was good, I wouldn't be too harsh with the review. But COME ON, after that ending and all the convoluted things that happened in between? This had no right :/ 

I'm devastated because the Owlcrate edition is GORGEOUS 😭 I really wanted to keep an open and positive mind, and I'm so sad I didn't really like it.

So let's go by parts, shall we? Starting with the writing, it's really juvenile while trying to appear more adult-like, including some semi-spicy scenes that really didn't get anywhere by the end. The writing would have been fine if it was the only issue. Like I said, I knew I wasn't the demographic and I guess a teenager would have liked it more than I did. But combined with all the other problems, this was just bad.

The book is written in a dual POV, switching from the FMC to MMC in each chapter. I don't know if this was the best choice, I think some chapters would have been better written from the other character's POV, but regardless. The real problem I have is that both POVs are just too similar. I kept on forgetting which character was the one speaking, and at the end, it didn't really matter because they both were really annoying. I really hoped I would grow attached to them by the end, but I really didn't care. And it's not that they are bad characters (like sure, Valen is selfish and Keltania is self-absorbed and overconfident, but I could easily regard those as character flaws if written properly), they are just really plain and forgettable. I didn't observe any growth character-wise, and the relationship between them felt extremely artificial. And again, at the end it didn't matter because (view spoiler)[ they didn't even end up together at the end!  (hide spoiler)]
I ended up liking the side characters so much more. The take on the Kelpie was refreshing, and I really loved him from the beginning. Other side characters such as Delkin and his brother also proved to be really well constructed, and I really wish we could've seen more of them. They were very much underutilized. 

As for the story, there were parts of it where I was really enjoying myself. There was a sense of adventure and enchantment. With some exceptions, I think the world-building was well done and creative. However, that is no excuse for those last few characters where everything just became confusing and lazily thought out. It is revealed that (view spoiler)[ Laini (Valen's aunt) was the main villain working against them, which I could've told you from the very first time we met her. What was a bit surprising was that she was working in alliance with Levina (the druid priestess), who es then revealed to have been the actual Aphelian this entire time.  (hide spoiler)] This is where all my confusion began, because the more I think about it, the less it made sense. (view spoiler)[ What would she gain by making an allegiance with Laini? What was the point in tricking Keltania into joining herself to Valen? And, more importantly, why would they need to dissolve the Heartbraker sigil for this plan to work? I mean, the plan relied in first: Keltania deciding to kill Valen so she could obtain the Fae magic; then: Keltania deciding to give the magic to Laini so she could rule the Winter Court; and third: Laini keeping her promise of giving back the drop to the druids, which (unbeknown to her) would use it to start a war with the Fae, starting with that same Winter Court. If this was the plan, then it was doom to fail from the start. And if it wasn't, then it was just to complicated for me to understand. The crow thing was also not very well explained? Was Levina just spying on them? There were several opportunities where she would have learned specific things that would change her plan. For example, if the reason she couldn't kill Liani before was that she thought the True Winter King was dead, then spying on them on Vel Bris (or however the human/ Fae colony was called) should have gave her enough information to know otherwise.  (hide spoiler)]

The ending was just not very well made. It takes on almost all of the book to detail their journey to the mountains (view spoiler)[(which didn't matter because the bond couldn't be broken) (hide spoiler)] and after the final confrontation they just cut back to the Winter Court with no indication of how the got there. (view spoiler)[ Valen takes on the role of the Winter King in accordance to the deal he made with Levina (which I still don't understand), and then she basically disappears. There was no attempt to apprehend her or stop her or anything, she just doesn't appear again. Valen and Keltania confess there love to each other (finally) and it doesn't matter because political tension is too high for there to exist a druid/Fae relation. And Keltania gets the Drop back, but does she take it back to the druids? Noooo (which I think would be consider treason to her people), because then they could use it to start a war.  (hide spoiler)] There is a half-made attempt at a suspenseful ending after the last chapter, but it really just feels incomplete.

Anyway, I just really needed to rant and get my thoughts out here. I won't be reading the sequel after. I had a lot of fun participating with other readers on the Owlcrate read along, which is basically what motivated to finish the book (other wise I would've DNFed). If you enjoyed the book I'm genuinely happy for you, because it's such a pretty edition. It just wasn't for me :/

Omen of Ice

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