Member Reviews
Tasch ., Reviewer
Review originally posted on: July 19, 2018
I both really liked and was let down by A Breath of Frost--while the characters are what shine about the novel I felt like the plot, world development, and structure of the novel could have been better developed and that is where the novel fell short.
Loved the characters because they are very much ALIVE--Emma, Gretchen, and Penelope. Emma is our main gal who absolutely has no idea she is even a witch (none of them do, another thing that was REALLY confusing during the first 30% of the novel--I seriously did not know if they did or did not know they were witches). Gretchen is by far my favorite of the cousins, she wants to be a spy, not look for a husband. And Penelope is a hopeless romantic.
Slight downside: There are a lot of characters to keep up with. Cormac (love interest), Cormac's sisters (like, 3-5 of those?), the parents, Moira, Strawberry, etc etc
Felt like some things were left very underdeveloped: Like, for example, the magic system. There isn't one? Magic happens because it happens and you deal with it. No rules as far as I could see; the girl's attend a magic school and they spend the entire novel showing you etiquette classes because "a lady should still be prepared to be a lady" but seriously, where are the magic classes? Who is teaching these girls to harness their power? How do they even know how to do the simplest stuff? It seems Emma spends most of her time in the library learning about her past and magic, and she would have to because the boarding school is no Hogwarts. Also the girl's individual magics were very slightly felt during the novel (other than Emma's awesome weather magic), and again nobody works to develop their powers! These girls were JUST made aware they have powers, how about a little teaching so that Emma at least doesn't strike thunder somewhere she should not and burn the place down.
It was oh so very confusing at times, and awkward POV changes. We start off the novel with Moira's POV as she goes and steals the eye of a dead witch (which was cool and all, but didn't add absolutely anything to the main plot line other than introducing Moira... who isn't even a main character). Then we abruptly switch to Emma, and now you are at a debutante ball and you have to quickly adjust and deal with the onslaught of information that comes your way. There must have been a way to make the introduction of Moira make sense with the rest of the novel, unless I missed something...
The first part of the novel was oh so damn LONG.I feel the book could have easily trimmed. I did not even realize the girls were being sent to a magical boarding school, which would have been so cool if introduced earlier in the story and it payed a bigger part. But it doesn't, and it isn't, and it really just felt like an afterthought. Every witch novel must have a magical boarding school? Would have really made more sense to have the girls be tutored for all the good that boarding school does in terms of both plot and character development.
The romance was cute, but I am on the fence on Cormac being the main love interest-- he seems to only want to make out with Emma and then throw her under the bus under the pretense that "I must keep the order on my side!" EVEN AFTER all the danger is said and done. I don't trust him, Emma could do better. Be like Gretchen, aim higher.
I also give extra brownie points because the main mean girl, Daphne, is not your typical "I am mean for the sake of being mean". She has many facets to her character, she is strong, able, talented, and works at being the best. Dare I say I loved her even more then Emma (I see a lot of potential in Daphne) and we don't get nearly enough page time with her.
I did enjoy the dialogue, and while the plot itself left much to be desired (as did the construction of the novel as a whole) I did enjoy the characters and the time period. For the characters alone I would read the sequel.
