Thought this was a good book. Interesting characters. I did think it should have marketed toward a younger audience. Felt kind of repetitive. Over all, good book that I would recommend.

5% magic / 95% high school blather

•Repetitive
•Confusing
•What?

The high school element was really, really painful.

Why is the queen even going to high school? She has no need for muggle education.

Just so she can meet a boy? While practising the waltz for a ball in a modern day Aussie school no less..

The queen is only on Earth to produce winter magic using the oceans.

The best part of this book is the magic ❄️ Elemental magic, ice magic, telepathy, heck yes. More of that please, less of everything else.

thank you to netgalley for the advanced reading copy. I really enjoyed this and will be getting copies for my shop.

THIS BOOK LITERALLY KILLED ME.....

THIS MASTERPIECE >>>.
This book was a rollercoaster for me. I loved Sasha. I hated Sasha. I loved Sasha. I hated Sasha. AND IN THE VERY LAST PAGE?????? WHAAAATTTT????
There are so many things i can say about this book. So many unrevealed things that im glad there will be second book.
To start with, this book couldve earned an easy 5 star from me. I just didnt understand why she left the Winterland in the beginning and why is she still in that school even if everything is so f-ed up with Brigid? And i think their true form could be more described. I understand that underwater she had long blue hair and blue eyes but she keeps saying ""Human form"" and""True form"" what are they? Mermaids? Something else? More details pleasee!
After all that show Sasha put, i dont think i can trust him again any soon. Puddles? I cried there. I cursed him there for doing all that....
☆☆☆☆/☆☆☆☆☆
Even though there were so many mistakes and secrets, i really really enjoyed this book.♡

Thanks for netGalley and Destarny for giving me an eARC of this book.

I loved this book! I thought it was original and had a good message. However, when I was at the last 10 or so pages, there was a certain plottwist that made me think this couldn't end like that. And then.. the book said: 'To be continued'.. Damn.. I want a book 2!

The story is well written, the characters are interesting and the character development is nice and steady. You kind of come to love the initial bad boy and will probably be heartbroken when things seem to go wrong. But do they really? I don't know, because that's why we need a book 2!

This story has so much potential. It started strong and I adored the characters but it fell off for me. It was a cute book though.

Unfortunately, I could not finish this as it was very poorly written and did not keep me entertained. Such a shame.

A well written novel ! Intrigued for the next part. Although predictable the book still kept us hoping , questioning and shipping all the same time. Even though I could predict the ending , the story was perfectly paced to be the first book of a series. I finished it within a few hours and wasn't bored at all. I love the writing and the character development. Waiting for the second part .

2 Stars for the confusing plot that could have been fleshed out into a good novel-length story and not a novella.

I had to DNF this book, just wasn't for me. I could see how others will enjoy it, but I couldnt relate to any of the characters and just got bored with the plot.

First time with this author and I have to say this was interesting concept that missed the mark. In this story we follow Princess Layla, from a far off place, ( really?) While she has to navigates high school with her brother Arnold ( her body guard) and mother Maria ( Arnold’s mother). While trying to blend in she becomes the target of the schools bully and is saved by an unlikely hero?
I really found this book a struggle to stay engaged and it took me along time to read.

This story has so much potential. It started strong and I adored the characters but when I reached the part where they were having a dance practice and this character just starts saying some corny and cheesy lines...and that made me stop and turn my Kindle off because I'm not a big fan of those.
I'm so sorry but I have to DNF this story. Maybe in the future, I will pick this up again but for now, it's a no for me.

❥ 3 stars ☆

The main character Layla is the Winter Queen from another world called Winterland. She lives in Perth, Australia in the human world, where she must hide her identity and her powers, which is best done by controlling her emotions at all times.

While that sounds exciting, I would have liked a better explanation of who Layla is, the closest description of her appearance is that she has blue hair and would maybe be mistaken for a mermaid if anyone would see her in the water. But we never got an actual explanation of who she is, what she looks like and what her “true form” is, she has a “human form” but she is not human.

I also would have liked to know more about why Layla, her bodyguard Arnold and his mother Maria are living in the human world. They seem to be preparing for something that will happen in their own world, maybe a battle, and the ministers in her world doesn’t seem to fully respect her even though she is their Queen.

Layla and Arnold try to blend in by going to high school, but their school has a bully named Brigid who along with her gang of followers finds new targets to torture for their own amusement. The teachers of the school choose to ignore it because of Brigid’s rich parents’ donations to the school while no students dare to stand up to her since they don’t want to become targets themselves.

Brigid and everything she came up with was just annoying, and I don’t understand why Layla and Arnold didn’t switch schools to one where they can actually just blend in and exist safely among all students, there can’t only be one high school that were available for them. I was always sceptical about Sasha but at least he made the story a bit more interesting to read. I can understand why Layla doesn’t trust humans.

This book was a quick read, but I think it would have been better if we would have gotten more answers. The story hints that we will get more answers in the future but I think that we already should have gotten them.

Am interesting concept that may not have hit the mark. In this story we follow Princess Layla, an “other being” from a far off place, as she navigates high school with her brother Arnold (who in their land is really her body guard) and mother Maria (who in their land is Arnold’s mother). While trying to blend in she becomes the target of the schools bully Brigid, and is saved by an unlikely champion… or was she?
I found it was a struggle to stay engaged and was easily distracted. I hope the next installment of this tale will be more engaging and offer a little more of Layla’s upbringing and home land, which will in turn make the over all experience better

Layla is the youngest Snow Queen to date. She and her friend Arnold are posing as a pair of human siblings and high school students. If she doesn't control her emotions, storms will will in and expose her identity, which could put her life at risk. Enter school bully Brigid and her minions. They have made it their goal to make Layla cry. If she does, disaster will ensue.
Definitely some stuff to address her. We still don't know much of the background, such as why their lives are at risk, or why she is in the human world. She sees other kids bullied and refuses to help because she considers them weak. She hates humans, but all the traits she lists about them -- including cynicism -- are ones she shares. When one person tries to befriend her, she treats him like crap 90% of the time. And now we have a massive cliffhanger.
So... I don't know. There is potential. But I wish she had more redeeming qualities, that we had more background info, and that no one had a cliffhanger. Also, I know adults can't prevent all bullying, but dang, Brigid is like a little mob boss! Where are the adults?

Sasha deserves better, ev er n with the direction this took.

Layla is a teenager having trouble in high school. Layla is also a winter queen, a non-human with power over the weather, and she is having trouble with her ministers. Somehow she needs to reconcile these roles.

A Single Snow is predominantly a high school drama book. While the start of the story leans heavily on Layla's role as a magical queen, the remainder focuses on her problems in the human world, and her attempts to deal with them without revealing her powers.

The high school is dominated by bully Brigid, who runs a violent gang with apparent immunity from the teachers, thanks to her parents' donations. Layla is marked as a victim, but saved by Sacha, a member of the gang. He takes the focus away from her and at the same time tries to build a friendship.

It took me a while to get into this book, but once it got into its rhythm it was quite a quick read and I found myself drawn into the story and enjoying the back and forth between Layla and Sacha. The plot falls down somewhat with its refusal to address why Layla has left her kingdom in order to join a human high school, risking her safety against the advice of everyone around her. And even if we accept the strange premise that a winter queen needs to go to a human school, what is stopping her from changing schools if the bullying is so horrifically violent? Without those answers, the peril seems artificial.

The book hints that there will be answers in further stories in the series, but I think it would have been better to address them in this first book. As it is, the magic and the human drama don't really sit well together.

Nonetheless, this is a light teenage read which is often diverting. Readers who enjoyed 'A Deadly Education' may well enjoy this book, which has similarities in tone.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5

I received this book as an "Advanced Readers Copy" and it was a cute book.
This was marketed as a YA/Adult Fiction but as I started reading it it was coming off very young teen. I gave this book 4 stars because I feel like if it was marketed to the correct audience this book would be great.
Now onto my review.....
This book had a great story line and the potential to be fantastic, but I feel like it fell short of the mark. The book definitely needed more detail, after finishing the book I still have no idea what she is the queen of or what she is supposed to be doing. I understand wanting to keep a certain air of mystery to get people to want to read the second book but this was just not even enough information to understand what was happening in the book. The book also didn't really have much going on, they met, they hang out, and she blows him off, and now repeat the process.

I feel that my 13 year old sister would have loved this book and not noticed such things but as it was marketed as a YA I feel like I need to review it as such.

Thank you Netgally for my copy of this book A Single Snow, by Destarny. There are spoilers below.

I will start by saying I wasn’t aware that the book was for a younger reader, it was evident by the end of the second chapter that A Single Snow is for a Tween reader.
Destarny has some good ideas in the book. I liked the idea of a Queen and they control the weather.
What I found really hard to absorb was the setting for the story, Perth Australia. For a fantasy story, placing the story there was a head scratcher. Layla is a magical queen, controller of the weather and I expected more of the magical aspects to enhance the story. The main character Layla is a coward. There is no real developmental storyline for her. She does not change that much in the story, continuing to be quite rigid in her ways. She could have protected people rather than cower. Layla is not a strong leader. That let the character down.
The back and forth with a secondary character Sasha was hard to absorb as well. He doesn’t develop much as a character. Is he a love interest or not? There was a wasted opportunity to build a good foundation there for them both. Who is the character Arnold? He is her protector but a little weak on his part as a character although he was likeable and deserved more of a part in the story.
I felt that the villain in the story, Brigid would have been better suited as a villain from her magical world and not a high school. The violence she and her gang engages in is kind of horrific. It would make more sense for Brigid to be in the villain from the other world. To have a character like that in the story doesn’t really fit in the high school storyline.
While on the storyline of the high school backdrop, I think it was a bit difficult (for me anyway) to believe this was an Australian high school . From the language used to the fact Layla can just waltz off before school is finished is a bit far fetched. No child could just leave school when they felt like it, Queen or not.
The story felt like it was a little circular and a little repetitive . Always getting in to a scrap with Brigid, Sasha gets bullied in Layla’s place over and over.
I felt the ending was rushed, possibly anticipating this book may be part of a series, I’m not quite sure. In any case, the book would be suitable for a Tween aged child.
I was torn to finish the book and not finishing the book, moving on to something else. I