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Title: Frostfire (Kanin Chronicles #1)
Author: Amanda Hocking
Page count: 321 pages
Publishing date: Jan 2015
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
My rating: 3.5/5 stars!
Blurb:
Bryn Aven is an outcast among the Kanin, the most powerful of the troll tribes.
Set apart by her heritage and her past, Bryn is a tracker who's determined to become a respected part of her world. She has just one goal: become a member of the elite King’s Guard to protect the royal family. She's not going to let anything stand in her way, not even a forbidden romance with her boss Ridley Dresden.
But all her plans for the future are put on hold when Konstantin– a fallen hero she once loved – begins kidnapping changelings. Bryn is sent in to help stop him, but will she lose her heart in the process?
I wanted to read this for two reasons: 1) I loved the Trylle series and, 2) the cover for Frostfire is simply beautiful and I'm just drawn to lovely cover art. Having said this, if you're hoping that Bryn's story will be similar to Wendy's, then I'm sorry to disappoint you. This might be kind of like a companion series but it's completely different from Wendy's story.
Bryn is a tracker for the Kanin. Loyal to her people, she wants nothing more than to serve the Kanin to the best of her ability. For those of you who are not familiar with this series or the Trylle series, there are different tribes of trolls. The Kanin is one of those and they are also the strongest tribe.
Even though Bryn has dedicated her life to being a tracker with the hopes of becoming a member of the Hogdragen, an elite army for the kingdom, she has never truly fit in among the Kanin due to her mixed blood. She is half Kanin, half Skojare. In Kanin society, mixed blood is considered barbaric and disgusting.
Bryn has fought hard to the position she is in now: tracker. Her job is to bring back young Kanin from human life and help them become a part of Kanin society. (You will understand why young Kanin are among the humans in the first place as you read along.)
The stakes grow high, however, when Konstantin Black, a wanted criminal, beings stealing the young Kanin for hidden reasons. Bryn vows that she will find him. Years ago Konstantin attempted to murder her father. If Bryn hadn't intervened, her father would be dead. Obviously this means that Bryn is going to want to get revenge.
It doesn't take long to figure out that there is a darker force behind everything that is happening to the Kanin, and Bryn is determined to find the truth. But the closer she comes to finding the truth, the clearer it becomes that things aren't always what they seem.
Characters:
Bryn is the workaholic of all the characters. She is very loyal to the Kanin and strives to do her job the best she can. I admire her work ethic. Bryn is not lazy by any means. She is always willing to help others and get the job done. Because of this, she leaves herself little room for a social life or romance. She considers love as weakness and a hindrance to everything she has done to get to where she is now. Bryn can also be very stubborn and quick to anger. Sometimes she follows her emotions before her head and that will definitely lead to some of the problems she encounters in this book. This annoyed me at times because she can be so dang impulsive and if she would've just thought things through a lot of her problems would never have happened in the first place. Most of her problems have to deal with her rash thinking and Konstantin Black, whom she wants to face and kill. I don't blame her for wanting revenge but she takes it to the next level. She eats, sleeps, and breathes Konstantin's capture and death. It's a little too much.
Ridley is the heart breaker of the group. Definitely a ladies man. Even so, he can be very loyal to the people that he cares about. He's smart, brave, and logical. As the leader over all of the trackers, he has a lot on his plate. He keeps up with what he does, though, and still manages to be a great friend to Bryn and the others. He can be really funny at times but also has a serious side. I actually really liked Ridley as a character. I thought he was pretty awesome in the way that he always seemed to be cool about everything. He was chill. He has his times with anger but he is able to balance it out better than Bryn.
Konstantin Black. Oh, how I love you.
Konstantin Black is my favorite character of the series. He's mysterious. You don't know his motives are, but he does have reasons for what he's done and what he will do. He's not the best person in the world by any means, but I love him to death. He's done a lot of bad things and hurt a lot of people. He's made some terrible mistakes and he's paying for them. But he's doing everything for a reason. Everything isn't black and white for him and you'll see that as you meet him and get to know him more. I personally think he's the most intriguing character in this series because he isn't a hero or a villain. He's somewhere in between and he'll make most of his mistakes as he treads that fine line.
King Evert and Queen Mina. They're the Kanin king and queen. Fitting the stereotypical characteristics: pompous, rude, and judgmental. I hated them both and I'm not surprised that I did. They're the bosses of the Kanin world. Anything that they say, goes. They have all the power. No one is to oppose them and if they do, they're either cast out or dead. It's that simple. As a reader, they were the ones that I really disliked just because I couldn't stand how awful they were.
Ember is Bryn's best friend. She is the social butterfly and is always talking to people and enjoying her life. She is a tracker as well but doesn't let it control her life. She's gay so you'll hear her mention girls. I liked her well enough but I just didn't connect with her. I didn't see her enough to really be bothered by anything that she did or said. As Bryn's best friend she should have been in this book a lot more.
Tilda is Bryn's other good tracker friend. She's the rational girl of the group. She's very calm and collected unless she gets upset. I don't have much to say about her because she wasn't in the book as much as she should have been. I barely recall anything that she did that was important.
Bryn's mother and father were also in this book, which I think is fitting because Bryn spends so much time wanting revenge on her father's assassination attempt. I understand that bother her mom and dad wanted what was best for Bryn but they are also very pushy and suffocating. Her mother is a Skojare living in a Kanin world so her life is often stressful and isolating. Her father has a job in the castle so he's a high enough figure in Kanin society, which is weird because his marriage is considered barbaric. Even so, they do love each other and work well as a couple.
Romance:
Yes, we have a love triangle. The romance in this book is really weak. Bryn used to be in love with Konstantin until he betrayed her father. But now that he's stirring up all of this trouble and Bryn is trying to catch him, all those feelings are being dragged up again. Konstantin and Bryn's relationship is really rocky, to be put mildly. There's not much trust at all between the two or really any at all but I think that will change as the series continues.
Bryn must also confront her feelings with Ridley as well. Their relationship is forbidden since he is her boss. Things are going to be difficult for the two since Bryn also doesn't want to give up her dream as a member of the Hogdragen for love. They'll spend the majority of the book wanting to be with each other but always refusing to do so. And then if there even is a moment it won't last long before things are back to being professional. I think this will change in the second book, however. The chemistry between the two is too much not to notice.
As for my thoughts on the romance... I wasn't a fan of the love triangle. Sometimes they work out and sometimes they don't. A good love triangle must have two likable and interesting relationships. Both of the love interests must be a good match for the main character for the love triangle to be successful. And while I think that both Konstantin and Ridley are great guys, I just don't think one has enough chemistry with Bryn for it to match the intense chemistry of the other couple. We'll see in the second book. This might get better.
Plot:
This is what needed more attention. I understand the plot well enough but the execution was not enough for me. To be honest, I was bored with this book. Nothing important really happened. I wanted action. I wanted heart-stopping romance. I wanted betrayal. I wanted something other than boring chapters that could have been edited out completely. I don't know, I just didn't think this book had much content. It had fluff, sure. But did it really have any depth to it? Not really.
I was so bored with the book that I didn't know if I was going to finish it or not (but I really wanted to because I'd already bought the second book and received an ARC of the third installment). I just wanted something to happen. I wanted more conflict. I wanted more trouble for Bryn. I just wanted something to happen that would make this more interesting. Desperately hoping that the second book is better with this.
A NOTE: If you haven't read the Trylle series, this book might be a little hard to understand. The author does a semi-okay job of introducing the reader to the world, but you will be thrown with a bunch of names of people you don't even know. Heck, I read the other series and STILL didn't remember who everyone was. More times than not, the author doesn't give a brief backstory of any of the names mentioned (mainly other royals of other troll tribes or famous trolls) so you might be confused. I was.
Overall thoughts:
This was okay/good. It was not great. The plot deserved so much more attention that it got but the characters were likeable so that's a plus. The romance did not send me jumping up and down and screaming like a little girl, so that's a disappointment. I'm hoping that this will continue to get better.
Until next time,
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