I was super excited to read “ Shadow Frost” by Coco Ma. The cover was the first thing that drew me in. I love it! Is this seriously Coco Ma’s debut novel? Like seriously? I really enjoyed it. It was a fast paced read from beginning to end. This book had so many layers. The characters developed over the course of the story, which I love seeing. There were many twists and turns that I didn’t see coming but a few I did. I did have the feeling of deja vu while reading certain scenes because certain things have of course been done before (as if there is a formula for fantasy YA). The writing itself could have been a little more developed. Overall, I really liked this book and look forward to reading the next book in the series.

I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The premise is interesting, but the execution is lacking. The characters feel distanced. The story portrays their actions and some emotions, but it feels as if it is being told to the reader, not expressed through the characters themselves.

DNFed.

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

So, I’m not sure where to start with this book. I’ll say this, I loved the cover from the moment I saw it. I initially clicked it because of it, and then after reading the synopsis, I wanted it for sure. When I started reading it I liked it, but nothing was really keeping my attention. The more I got into it something just seemed off for me. I didn’t like the interactions between the characters. It just didn’t seem very fluid to me. I hate saying that because the storyline was really good and I loved the concept of everything and I also really enjoyed the world that they were in. I just had qualms with the relationships and conversations. It was so off for me. And I am so sad that it’s the case because I wanted more than anything to like this. There were times that I wanted to know what happened next and I feel like I may have somewhat connected with the characters.

So we follow Asterin Faelenhart, princess of Axaria and next in line to the throne. In her land, there is a Demon that is killing her people and every time a group of soldiers goes out to kill this demon they never come back. Asterin feels like she has the power to defeat this Demon because of how strong her magic is. She convinces her mother, the Queen, to let her go and the Queen tells her to pick a few soldiers to go along with her that are just as powerful. Asterin knows that if she kills this Demon, her mother will be proud, and it will save her people.

As Asterin and her friends go hunt the Demon they find so much more than they were looking for. Other things are out to get them, and the truths that they all believed is not even close to reality.

This was an interesting adventure with all likable characters. But again, it just wasn’t from me. I couldn’t connect to any of the characters and I got way too frustrated during certain conversations. I would love to chat with someone who has read it and see what your thoughts are on it. If you have read it leave a comment and let’s chat!

I gave it 3.5 stars

SHADOW FROST was an entertaining read, with a wide cast of characters and a world that was more vast than I could have imagined.

There are quite a few characters in SHADOW FROST that are a big part of the story. Some seem inconsequential and end up being way more important to things than you thought. There is a bit of a romance involved. For a bit, I thought there would be a love triangle, but thankfully that does not happen.

There were some crazy and shocking twists thrown at us. I didn't see them coming, and the consequences of the events that preceded them surprised me. The world was easy to get lost in and the pace flowed nicely.

There were some small things that I wished would have been better with SHADOW FROST. I wish there would have been some more character development before everyone became such close friends. I also felt like the age of the characters wasn't always represented with their behavior. There were few cringe worthy romance moments, but knowing the author wrote the story at 15 kinda makes me understand the way some things played out.

My issues with the story weren't strong enough to put me off the story. I am definitely interested in reading more.

* This book was provided free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

DNF @ 27%

I was so excited about this one that I got a bunch of my blogger friends hyped and we had a buddy read set up, but unfortunately the consensus seems to be disappointment.

Although it's not a *bad* read by any means, I found it predictable to the point that I couldn't get myself interested in continuing. My affection for tropes is well-documented, but in this case there's an excess of cliches, from the magic system to character descriptions.

While the cast is mostly likable enough, they're pretty standard snarky Chosen-One (aka overly powerful) teenagers and thus not all that memorable among their YA fantasy peers. There are also so many major and major-adjacent characters that I started losing track of the who's who, especially since they're often referred to by descriptors — such as "the Eradorian" — rather than name or pronoun. (While I've been guilty of doing this myself in the past, these days it only works for me in fanfic where I'm intimately familiar with each character's traits and backstory. Otherwise, it simultaneously disconnects me from the characters and jars me out of the flow of the plot.) More editing could also have helped smooth out the prose.

Among its genre, I'm sure this book will find its fans. But unfortunately I can't be one of them.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of Shadow Frost by Coco Ma. I've voluntarily read and reviewed this copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Let me just say that I'm a sucker for elemental magic and sassy characters, which means that Shadow Frost was a gold mine for me. Awesome magic system? Check. Incredible characters with plenty of sass and banter between them? Check. Intriguing world-building? Check. Major plot twists? Check. Important friendships? Check. Interesting villain? Check. Should I go on?!

In short, I absolutely loved this book. I was hooked from the first page and immediately rooting for all the characters. Such a delightful and at times hilarious squad. The twists were unexpected and original. The writing was captivating. The ending has left me wanting more.

Very excited to see what Coco Ma will bring to the sequel!

DNF at 14%
Nope, nope, nope. I'm sorry, I tried. I did. But after 5 days of barely making a dent, I'm calling it quits. While I admire the author for having written and published a book so young, it's also very clear that she is. This read like childish fan fiction with over the top cheesy banter every conversation, weird romances developing, and just really immature writing overall.

Officially I have a thing for that kind of books. Especially when it's a new author and willing to try its strength in the hard genre as this one.
You can feel that it was written by the young person, as some places are done in the way younger people would do. As well as not everything is polished here, which made the book even more real.
The story was intriguing and for sure captivating with all those twists And secrets that were revealed, but as well as coming all along.
I had my expectations about what will happen by the end, and I was right by some, but by some, I was completely misled by Ms. Ma.
Hopefully, there will be the next book released soon as I can't wait what this debate author will do next time!

DNF at 44%

I absolutely hate it when I can’t finish a book. I fell in love with this book’s cover, then the blurb sealed the deal for me. My anticipation grew during the prologue, especially when I came across this little marvel:

“This was a gateway to a realm of merciless darkness, of beautiful horrors and bloodthirsty nightmares.”

I usually love banter between characters but a lot of it hasn’t worked for me so far. It’s gotten to the point that if a particular character calls the princess a ‘brat’ one more time I’m going to want to throw my Kindle at a wall. I’m also not a fan of all of the flirting, especially when it closely follows a massacre that’s supposed to be devastating.

The language is inconsistent at times, with characters wandering from “brat” to “‘morrow” to “my bad”. It switches between so many points of view that I’ve lost count and although I haven’t read a lot of fantasy book it feels like I already know all of the individual elements in this story too well.

I’m feeling really defeated right now. I know I’m surrounded by so many ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ reviews and I had planned to be writing one of them.

I hope to finish this book in the future but I’m having to slog my way through it at the moment and if I keep doing this I’m only going to be looking for faults that may or may not exist.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the opportunity to read this book. I have not given this book a star rating on Goodreads but need to in order to submit my review to NetGalley.

Shadow Frost ticked all the boxes for me! It was super intriguing and the magical system really wrapped me into the story! The characters were interesting but I thought the representation of those characters as typically 'perfect' was a little annoying. But the elemental magic, the other defining qualities of the characters, the plot and the fast-paced storytelling totally outweighed the negatives. I cannot wait to read more from Coco Ma!!

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book.

Shadow Frost is the kind of book that I really wanted to love. It has a gorgeous cover, a captivating name and the summary left me curious enough to want to know more about the quest. Were there things that I liked about this book? Yes. But there were also a great deal of things that just didn’t quite work for me. For simplicity’s sake, I’m splitting this review into three points: What I loved, What I liked and What I didn’t like.

What I loved: I loved the magic system and world-building. This first book merely scratched the surface on some of its aspects, but I love the idea that there is more than one Kingdom in this world, and that each of them masters a different element. I loved the idea that magic is channeled through affinity stones, which is something that I found very original. Of course there are exceptions to this rule, and there are those who can wield magic without the stones, and though I’m a bit confused by this, I’m sure it will be explored more thoroughly in future books.
Another aspect I loved was the attention to friendship. Sometimes, in the epic adventures and romance of fantasy, friendship tends to slither through the cracks. But this book had some very strong family and friendship bonds that I loved reading about.

What I liked: I liked the writing, but I did have some difficulty with it. There were times when it flowed very smoothly and eloquently without overdoing, but there were other moments—especially in the dialogues—where the writing felt very immature. Now, I know the book was written when the author was 15, but I didn’t know about the author’s age when I picked up the book, and I imagine that neither will many people picking it up. It honestly felt lacking in things that an editor could have easily counseled to improve, so I don’t feel like the author’s age when she wrote the book should be an excuse. However, I think this is something that will improve in future books, and I enjoyed it for the most part.

What I didn’t like: Unfortunately, everything else. Firstly, I felt like the plot that was promised in the summary simply wasn’t in the book. The action expires in a succession of childish banter between characters and told-not-shown reveals. The book lacked a true climax, and I think what damaged it most of all was the fact that there were too many points of view that ended up being too revealing. I also wasn’t a fan of the characters themselves. This book had a large cast of characters, but while there were some that I fancied more than others, none were able to leave a lasting impression. The result is that I was not invested even in the romance—which is usually one of the things I love most in a book, but that here felt like a strange union of slow burn and insta-love.

Sadly, the ending didn't leave me curious enough to want to know how this story is going to progress, so I doubt that I’ll be continuing with this series. However, if you enjoy reading very young YA and want to try a new take on elemental magic, then this could be a book that you might want to try for yourselves.

I have been excited to read SHADOW FROST since I first heard about it a few months ago. I am an absolute sucker for fantasy, and YA fantasy in particular has been *killing it* these past few years! There are some amazing books being written (and, I have to add, I love and am so proud that most of them are written by women!), and SHADOW FROST *easily* belongs in that category. I am flabbergasted that Ms. Ma wrote this when she was a mere 15 years old – she is clearly a prodigy in multiple respects! I was drawn in from page one of this epic fantasy that includes everything from magical abilities and a kickbutt princess to tight-knit friendships, sweet romance, and demon hunting. How awesome does that sound?

I have to say I love the demon hunting aspect of this story – and just the raising of a demon in general. That part reminded me a bit of THE GREAT HUNT by Wendy Higgins (which I also loved). In order to try and stop the demon ravaging the country, Princess Asterin, along with two of her oldest friends and two new friends, heads out to track it down. Much danger ensues, while new friendships are formed and others may be put to the test. Each of the five has different magical abilities, which are really cool. I love the whole magical system in this story and how they are loosely based on the elements but also connected with the nine gods that populate the Immortal Realm. It’s a very cool mythology, and the world-building is excellent. There were surprises that threw me for a loop, and the ending has given me some concerns about what’s ahead for Asterin and her crew! I am now on pins and needles waiting for the next installment…do I really have to wait a whole year??

SHADOW FROST just feels so fresh and unique, and I love the world, characters, and mythology/magic system Ms. Ma has created. It’s an excellent story that, while dense, you will find yourself racing through because you can’t stop reading. If you are at all a fan of fantasy and/or paranormal, I cannot recommend this highly enough!

RATING: 5 stars!

**Disclosure: I received an ARC of this book for purposes of this blog tour. This review is voluntary on my part and reflects my honest rating and review of the book.

Thank you netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for a free copy of the book in exchange for a review. Also: excellent job on the cover.

Oh boy okay. DNF'd at 112 pages/28%
<img src="https://tenor.com/x1O1.gif">

Look, I don't know how much of this is me, as this book seems to be quite loved. Fantasy, especially YA fantasy, and I have an incredibly complicated relationship. I can't pick and choose what I do like about it, but I do know I am super picky about it. To the point that I've honestly tried not to grab any galleys of them anymore because I rarely like them.

I am so glad that I found out the author originally wrote this at 15 and is only 19. Coco, it is amazing you got published, and I do actually look forward to seeing what you do in the future.

Because I do think part of my is that this book reads like a new book. It's mostly in the dialogue for me. I think the concept here is really cool -- the princess is bad ass, she's got some great friends, a complicated and bad relationship with her mom, and now there is a demon threatening the kingdom. Even some of the random reveals are really cool.

But everything reads and feels so surface level. It takes 80 pages to get to the demon problem, and there is no build up to it. None at all. The guardians(?) are practicing, and then suddenly we find out that thirty guards have gone missing. And the fight the princess has to get her mother to allow her to leave is ....incredibly easy?

Mostly though, I just can't deal with the dialogue (at one point a guardian says bye to a guy by his name, the princess asks why he knows the name, and it's JUST. POINTLESS.), nor when a guy is more worried about his crush having a boyfriend when they're all at risk of dying from a demonic creature. That's the point I had to close the galley and put it up.

Maybe I just need to read longer fiction, because I am guessing everything that's going to get put into this book isn't going to have enough build up. I just don't feel any pull to care about the characters or the kingdom, and I can't do that for 400 pages. I gave it 62 pages longer than I normally would, knowing that the author is young, but that's my limit.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

Shadow Frost
By: Coco Ma

*REVIEW* 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Shadow Frost is a uniquely designed story. What I mean is that there are really six main characters, instead of the usual one or two. Each has a distinct voice and perspective, and I found the story easy to follow. I didn't get lost in the characters. They worked very well as a cohesive unit. In addition, the time and place are vividly rendered with beautiful and lyrical descriptions that are detailed. This story is definitely different, but it's well written and worth giving a try.

This book had a unique premise, it was a tad bit slow at the beginning but swept me up soon enough and kept me in it's grip well until the end. I would recommend it to other fellow fantasy fans in a heartbeat. Thank you for allowing me to read and hand sell this title.

When I began reading this novel, I wasn’t sure I would like the main character. Asterin is strong but can be a bit of a brat at times and that was something that took me a little time to grow used to her and actually enjoy her. She is strong and a fighter, never backing down. I ended up really liking how resilient she became. Asterin knows her strength and will not let others fight battles she thinks she is capable of winning. So…she goes on a journey to find a demon who is leaving nothing but death and destruction in its wake. She will not sit idle while others fight for her, she wants to be in the fight…hands-on. I really love that. Women need to see those types of characters, the ones who aren’t afraid to stand up for themselves…the ones who aren’t damsels waiting to be rescued. We need to show young women that it is alright to be strong and stand up for what we believe, that we don’t need to be ‘saved.’



As the book progresses, I fell more in love with Asterin and her friends. Beware though because not everyone is what they seem. The ending really had me second-guessing myself. It isn’t all sad though, there are some great laughs to be had. I ended up falling in love with this book. I mean honestly…who wouldn’t with such a strong lead character, wonderful word building, and magic!



Yes…there is romance and it is a trope. Here we see the enemy to lover trope but in my opinion it was pushed on the reader rather quickly. I would have liked to have seen more development between them, letting time pass a little. I understand why it was done this way though, the story overall is very fast-paced and I did enjoy it. Some spots were more slow-moving than others and I had to force myself not to skim the pages. This is not a read that I finished in two hours…it took days (especially since I have kids and a million other things to do each day haha). Can you believe that Coco Ma wrote this book at age 15?! Well believe it because it happened. I am not sure why I am surprised though because I know many young, teen writers. But this book was soooo good!!



Another one of my biggest issues with this book was the characters. Yes, I loved them all but there was a huge emphasis on how physically attractive they each were. I understand this makes them appealing but it can also be a turn-off. Where is the diversity in characters? Not all of us have thin figures and long flowing hair, nor do all men have muscular bodies. I would have liked to see a little more diversity in the book, that’s all. Beauty comes in many forms.



Overall, this was a wonderfully entertaining read and I look forward to book two! Coco Ma is an incredibly talented writer and I can only imagine what she has in store for us next.

I’m getting tired of YA fantasy monarchies, at least the traditionally ‘western’ ones. The princesses are all sarcastic and the princes are just a smirk personified, and all this ground feels very well-treaded. I’m reading too much into this, but what does it say when all the important and powerful characters are determined by ‘blood’ and the station to which they are born? I never thought I’d pine for the Bella Swan styled “regular girls, sigh”, but here we are.

The character interactions really aren’t charming in the slightest. They’re just mean to each other, then their ears and cheeks flush. Not to mention how inappropriate some of these relationships are; if someone is your ‘guardian’ growing up, but as soon as you get boobs it becomes *something more*, then he needs to be shipped off to the Woody Allen Island of Misfit Predators. Also—what’s desirable about a guy crashing through your closed bedroom window, leering at your “low neckline”, then slapping him while he clutches a...baby bird? Is this what teenagers think is romantic now? Back in my day, creepy older men in books simply snuck into teenage girls’ bedrooms to watch them sleep, like NORMAL people.

And woooooow the male posturing is just next level. Two dudes are arguing and fighting every other chapter over said sarcastic princess’s **vIrGiNiTy** and it’s incredibly toxic. She also hits them both a lot. Hopefully I don’t need to explain why these are problematic, especially for teenagers. Relationships shouldn’t be this hostile, and there’s nothing in the least bit romantic about how these characters act with each other.

It’s fine, just too familiar. If you’re looking for a paint by numbers YA fantasy novel, then this is as good an option as any. The author apparently wrote this when she was 15, so I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and am open to reading more from her.

Actual rating: 4.5 stars
This book was absolutely amazing! Such a wonderful beginning to a book series that I was addicted to since page 1! It gave me a “Frostblood” (written by Elly Blake) vibe and I loved it!!

Shadow Frost was a well written and interesting debut fantasy. The found family vibes, the banter, lots of secrets makes it a really fun read. My problem with the book was that it got a little predictable at times which made it boring. A lot happens in the last 20% and until then it’s just good. I really liked it but I am not sure if I loved it.

so I first want to say that I think this book would work well for younger audiences in the YA spectrum. reading the author’s bio it says she wrote this at 15 and while I admire TF outta that (teenage and adult me could never) you can definitely tell while reading.

shadow frost is the quintessential 2000s YA novel. it follows a princess, a band of hooligans with lots of banter, and a villainous demon.

because I have grown as a reader from these cliches and tropes this absolutely fell flat for me. everything was extremely surface level from the world building, the magic, the characters, the plot, and even the countless plot twists that left me with nothing to be desired.

I thought the writing was very clunky and unpolished. I can’t help but think if the author built on this world further and wrote a few more drafts this could have been much better.

this is also clearly a character driven story as we follow six members of this band of individuals as they are trying to hunt for this demon. however the same problems I have with the writing carry through with the characters. the dialogue and actions were so cheesy it hurt and, again, everything was SO surface level and underdeveloped. and because this story was carried through the characters it prevented me from caring about anything that was happening.

again it may be because I’m not the intended audience for this but this definitely does not hold up to this new wave of YA in 2019.