Author: Kate Elliott
Series: Spiritwalker #1
Genres: YA, Fantasy, Magic
Publisher: Orbit
Release: 2010
Source: Paperback/Audiobook
Pages: 528
// Goodreads // BookDepository // Amazon //
BLURB:
As they approach adulthood, Cat Barahal and her cousin Bee think they understand the society they live in and their place within it. At a select academy they study new airship technologies and the dawning Industrial Revolution, but magical forces still rule. And the cousins are about to discover the full ruthlessness of this rule.
EXPECTATIONS: I saw this book as part of high fantasy recommendations on youtube about two years ago and ever since it has been on my TBR list. Let's just say I used to mark a lot of high fantasy books simply because they were high fantasy before I started reading the genre properly.
THE WORLD: So as most high fantasy books this one also had a pretty much set world. We have magic, magical creatures, crazy heists and so on. Now blurb promises this story to be based in academy. You might know by now that high fantasy books that are set in University/Academy are my most favorite and so I expected a lot from this book took. Unfortunately, the blurb turns out to be misleading because even tho yes main character does go to academy it plays a very very small roll in the because. Why? Because our main character is mainly running most of the book. So yeah no surprise I was disappointed. It was not necessary bad thing that she was running but blurb sold this book not for what it really was and I call it cheating. Anyways, the run itself was alright, we meet these tribes, crazy magicians and similar things, also we meet spiritwalkers which was rather interesting. The only critique I have to that was that this world was super predictable. I get that high fantasy worlds tend to be set and very similar but they usually have at least some unique detail, this unfortunately was not the case with Cold Magic.
CHARACTERS: There are few characters in this book but I will describe only three just to prevent spoilers. Let's start with Cat Barahal. She was raised by her aunt and uncle after her parents died when she was a child. There is this whole thing about her parents in the book but as I said, no spoilers. So Cat ends up being the one who needs to run for her life and so we get to know her pretty well. Frankly, I don't like Cat. She was too nonlinear, first she is this brave wanna know all and then suddenly she is becomes a silent mouse but later she again plays a brave warrior. And I don't mean adapting to the story shifts, at some point she was really this Amazon Warrior just super brave, say what she thinks I rule the world sorta thing. And then when she is in man's company suddenly she has absolutely no voice. If they told her to go jump of the cliff she would have just jumped. So it was annoying, I really don't like the characters who don't have an actual personality. Next we had Bee, a saint nurse term probably described her best. Again, when Cat was a warrior Bee was silent mouse but when Cat was silent mouse suddenly Bee was a warrior. Not a character but a prop. And finally we had Andevai, a man completely controlled by magicians and of course a magician himself. I kinda think that magicians in general were portrayed too must like evil villains in this book so I wasn't a big fan of Andevai either. Just a very malish male, no real personality once again.
ROMANCE: Cat needs to well actually does marry Andevai via arranged marriage. Then it turns out she is not good enough for Andevai according to magicians so Andevai needs to kill Cat. But hey look suddenly Cat and Andevai are deeply in love. #instantlovemuch
GOOD: I don't really know. It wasn't that this book was super terrible, it just felt like I will not remember anything about it in a year. So yeah...maybe the brother of Cat would be my good point.
BAD: Very forgettable story. Insta love.
OVERALL: Now that I have read many high fantasy books I would not recommend Cold Magic to any who loves high fantasy. But if you are a fan of YA and you want to start reading High Fantasy then this books might be good for it. But all in all, I personally will not continue with the series.
What do you think about COLD MAGIC?
