This audiobook had me hooked, I loved the narrators, and the storyline was interesting. I love Elves, so I was hooked, and this Pennza's version of Elves was one I haven't come across yet. Again, I really enjoyed the narrators; they really brought out the charaters and made the pace for the story to be enjoyable. The storyline, itself, had romance, intrigue, and spice. Now, do I recommend this book? Yes. Do I recommend you get the audio version, if you can, absolutely.

Love this audiobook and all the voices. The fantasy gives Elsa vibes but a Shakesphere style plot. The dictation and audio were great and clear. Loved all the voices that were used.

I really enjoyed this book! It was such a well written book with well developed characters and great world building. It was probably one of the spiciest books that I have read as well! It started by giving some background information on the world building and quickly developed into a why choose love triangle. There is an age gap and guardian / ward trope that I felt like was a little off-putting at first, just simply because they’re not my favorite tropes, but honestly it was very tactfully written in my opinion. It follows Liria as she navigates her role in a political monarchy system that is charged with keeping the frost and winter, while her magic isn’t strong enough to live up to her title. She has to make decisions around love, lust, and power while finding her place with two other powerful MMCs. If you love a fast paced and high spice fantasy romance that can be read as a standalone, this book is for you!

Thank you NetGalley and Amy Pennza for the ARC of The Frostbound Queen!! I lovedd this book!! The voices were amazing, especially because they did two for the males!! The spice was fantastic and went from 0-100 quickly. The one small detailed I wasn’t in love with was that the guard had been with her since 12, I love a good age gap but not when they’re around growing up. Besides that one detail I loved it!!

Story about Liria, the elven princess in a frosty world. Her guardian, Ronan, has kept the realm frozen since Liria’s father fell into a grieving state. Liria can create some frost but does not have Ronan’s skills. When she fears Ronan will usurp the throne, she runs to the human realm and meets Sigurn. She is attracted to both men and discovers they also have a previous connection.

I liked the icy world the elves lived in. I could almost feel the cold when I read the descriptions of frosted trees and chilly air.

The romance in the book goes from 0 to sizzling quickly. I didn’t love that Ronan had been Liria’s guardian since she was 12 and that he was so much older than her. The relationship did grow on me but I wish the author had not done such a large age gap. I liked the relationship between Liria and Sigurn and also the one between Ronan and Sigurn. Their eventual decision to move forward as a throuple made sense. I’ve only read a few MMF books, but I thought the author did a great job of balancing all three relationships and building their shared connections.

The book is extremely spicy. I’ve read Katee Robert, but I think this was even spicier. The scenes were fine but I think it would have been more believable if Liria had been older and more experienced. I kind of rolled my eyes at how quickly she was “all in” on everything.

I listened to the audiobook and thought the narrators were really good. A different person did the voices for all three characters and I really appreciated the two men having different voices. I think it could have been confusing otherwise.

If you like spicy fantasy, check this one out. The world building was done well and the romance is memorable.

The Frostbound Queen
by Amy Pennza

“𝘐’𝘮 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘐 𝘬𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶,” 𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘱𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘦.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶️🌶️🌶️

This was the best spicy romantasy to get me out of my slump! Liria, Ronan, and Sigurn were perfect together and the plot was so twisty it kept me guessing who had good intentions! 👀 The world building was easy to follow and intriguing and I thought the narrators did a wonderful job bringing this story to life!

Liria does an amazing job of coming into her power and knowing what she wants! She was an amazing and strong FMC. 👑

Ronan and Sigurn took turns as my faves! Ronan had the perfect grumpy vibe and I thought their scenes together were so 🥵

I don’t wanna spoil anything so you’ll have to read to find out how these three end up together to save the winter court! ❄️

I totally went into this book thinking it was a YA fae romantasy and it was absolutely not that. At all. Whoopsie daisy...my bad. Despite that, I thought the world-building was interesting. I had trouble with her guardian becoming her love interest and the age gap was definitely a little weird for me. The book kinda lost me when it turned to all smut. A lot of other reviewers really raved that this was great spice, but it felt to me like smut we got when we ordered from Wish.com. I didn't really mind the throuple aspect so much even though it's not really my taste, but I found the smut to be just very weirdly articulated and it was not my thing at all. While I don't necessarily think it was bad, it just wasn't for me. I would have enjoyed more of the fantasy elements that were set up so well, which would have helped me like this more. Overall, my misconception with what I thought I was going to be reading initially set me back (my fault, not the author), but I think more plot would have balanced the smut better and I would have enjoyed it more.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest review!

3.75⭐️ 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️/5

❄️ MMF Romantasy
❄️ Guardian/Ward
❄️ Ennemies to Lovers
❄️ Miscommunication
❄️ SPICY SPICY SPICY (yes there’s sword crossing)
❄️ Elves & magic
❄️ Seasonal Courts

Read this one as an audiobook and I will start by saying that I LOVED all 3 of the narrators - they did a phenomenal job! My only note here would be that, with a multi-cast audiobook, I really am begging production to start utilizing that and having everyone do their own voices, not a woman doing a male voice and vis versa.

For the book itself, this was a great short romantasy book with some great elements! I loved the frosted magic element and the lore, just wish the plot wouldn’t get overshadowed so much by the spicy contents. I had a hard time connecting with Liria because she didn’t really have that much depth to her… and her relationships felt very surface level.

To that point though, the spice, was spicing!! And it was really well written! Not my absolute favorite in terms of pacing, but it had me coming back for me!

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscapes for the ALC✨❄️

I enjoyed the story line, the spice was on point but the grooming of Liria from Ronan made me sick. Anything else but her guardian. I think the plot needs to be focused on a bit more instead of throwing more and more smut in.

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for this ARC Audiobook!
All opinions are honest and my own.

The Frostbound Queen - Amy Pennza
3/5 Stars
5/5 Spice

The elven king of the Winter Court is on his deathbed and despite his daughter and only heir, Liria, being trained under the guardianship of Ronan, the king’s righthand man and best friend, Liria’s powers haven’t become strong enough to protect and uphold the eternal winter. When Liria realizes that Ronan may be trying to seize the crown, she passes into the humans’ lands to escape and find allies. She meets Sigurn Brighthelm, the human prince of the Kingdom of Nordlinga, which happens to also be in danger of being usurped. What she doesn’t realize is that she, Ronan, and Sigurn may have a connection to each other that may save both the elven and human kingdoms.

----

I went into this book blindly and phew, I was not expecting the spice level!

The spice definitely takes the forefront of the book. The storyline and plot line are pretty bland. I was actually really interested in the world building and the different elements each region seemed to have, but everything seemed to fall slightly flat (What else happens in the Winter Court besides it being winter all the time? Why do the elves in that region depend on the frost so much for survival? So many questions went unanswered).

It is the first in a series (although this can be read as a standalone), so I’m interested if the other books focus on other regions and their powers. There is a secondary character that had been introduced (Morella) who had some interesting shadow powers, so I wonder if she’ll be featured in a later book. The main characters were fine, but there was not much in terms of character development.

Essentially, everything seemed to be pushed aside when the romance kicked up. With the blurb, I was expecting a fantasy that featured more adventure, action, and drama with a little bit of romance. Instead this is more focused on romance with a little bit of everything else. Which is fine but I think I was just expecting more of an interesting plot.

The narrators were great!

Key Elements:
-Multiple POVs
-MMF
-Elves vs Humans
-Enemies to Lovers
-Insta-love
-Guardian/Ward

Quotes:
“Maybe I was not worthy of winter. But I was worthy of love and no one was taking it from me.”

This was an exciting tale of finding your place in the midst of magic, political battles, and personal desires. With the help of Ronan, Liria navigates her father's illness. But once he passes, Ronan becomes a different person altogether.

Fleeing to the human realm, Liria finds a human king to ally with, and now she finds herself between their ambitions both politically and personally.

I really liked how in the beginning we meet Liria and learn about her struggle to keep her father’s legacy alive, while also attempting to make her own legacy and protect her people. I wish we had gotten to learn more about Ronan. I loved the mystery shrouding his background, but I would have loved to know more about him. I really loved the spice and world building.

I am in my romantasy era as of late, so this seemed like the perfect addition to my collection.
Alas, I feel like I was cheated out of an amazing story.
After reading the blurb, I was expecting a high stakes, angsty read full of betrayal, revenge, and enemies to lovers with a potential love triangle.
But what I got was... not that. What we have here is grooming, insta-love, smut for the sake of plot, low angst, lots of miscommunication, and a fantasy world that sounds amazing but is not fleshed out in the slightest.
The romance between Liria and Ronan read like a grooming situation. He became her guardian when she was 11 years old and has wanted her since she was at least 16. This made it hard for me to be okay with their relationship. I wasn't rooting for them and felt icky when they were together.
I feel like as soon as Lyria and Ronan had sex the first time, at like 30% in, the story went downhill fast. Then throw in insta-love with Sigurn, and it got worse. Their "relationship" became the main focus of the story, forsaking the plot altogether. There were so many opportunities for this novel to be magnificent, but the author chose heavy smut scenes, low impact stakes, and one-dimensional characters instead.
The fantasy world definitely needed to be more fleshed out. All we know are there are separate realms, I'm assuming season related, and the Winter Court has to be covered in a layer of frost. But we're never told why. Only that the kingdom will die without the frost. BUT WHY??? I have so many questions, and none were answered.

Overall, the story needed more. The characters were uninteresting, the plot was dull, and the world-building was abysmal.

TW: miscarriage and stillbirth - off page, guardian/ward relationship, parental death - on page, severely hurt MC - on page.

*Enemies to lovers
*MMF
*🌶🌶🌶🌶
*Elves

I didn't know about the MMF aspect prior, but I'm not mad at it 😉

Liria is Princess of the Winter Court and as her father has fallen ill, she is soon to be QUEEN of Winter Court. Ronan is her faithful guardian and best friend. The problem with her father falling ill is, she doesn't possess the magic needed to keep Winter Court in a blanket of frost. Now that her place on the throne is threatened by Ronan, she escapes to the human lands where she knows her guardian will not go to find her. Once in the human lands, she runs into Sigurn, the rebel prince. They have more than one rendezvous and then she learns that he was no stranger to Ronan and that they know each other very well. With Ronan seemingly keeping secrets from her, Liria becomes wary and doesn't know if she can trust him or Sigurn for that matter.

Are they trying to take the throne from her? Do they really care about her like they say?

Thank you Dreamscape Media & NetGalley for my ARC copy.

There is an explicit guardian/word relationship that feels extremely predatory and ick. It’s a pass for me.

I went into this book completely blind, and wow was I hit for six! My first book by Amy Pennza and it won’t be my last. Excellent narration. 4/5

3.5⭐️ for overall story, rounding to 4 / 4.5⭐️ for audiobook performance

Yet another yummy read from Amy Pennza! I really enjoyed this MMF, it had a lot of good stuff going on in here. Liria and Ronan's dynamic was fun (once she was an adult). Sigurn was a whole snack and a half, and when paired up with Ronan and Liria, I was having a fabulous time.

I will say, I thought it was kind of messed up how the power dynamics were though, in terms of Liria's royalty/magical situation vs Ronan. Kinda seemed to give the impression that a royal woman couldn't do the job but a lesser man could. However, that was minor for me. Another thing I thought was lacking was more of Ronan & Sigurn's backstory. I wanted to read more about how they came to know each other; what those first interactions were like; and how they came to have the relationship they had once Liria came into the picture. It almost felt like this story was just not completely fleshed out from all angles.

While I enjoyed the world-building/magic that we had here, I also felt like it was a little flat in terms of it's appeal. It just seemed like their magic was to spread winter's frost and that's it. It didn't seem very dynamic other than that. I wanted more.

From a spice standpoint, Pennza was definitely providing some juicy scenes, definitely enjoyed those. She never disappoints in that department.

As far as the audiobook performance, I thought that was fantastic, especially for being dual narration. All three narrators did a fantastic job and I thoroughly enjoyed their performance. The female narrator's male tones between the two MMCs was a little tight at times. Her accent for Ronan did not necessarily sound the same as Ronan's narrator all throughout, and same for Sigurn. So sometimes during her POV it was tough to distinguish between the two men speaking without a designator. Ronan's narrator also seemed to have a better time with the FMC narration than Sigurn's narrator; it sounded a bit more natural from him as opposed to Sigurn's where it sounded a little more forced. But honestly, in the grand scheme, these were very trivial things to the average listener I'd say, and I don't think they should dissuade anyone from consuming the audio for this book.

I would recommend if you're looking for a quick and dirty fantasy MMF or are already a fan of Pennza's work. I will say, it's not as high quality as her Bitten & Bound series (which I absolutely loved), but it's not a bad segue into the arena of fantasy MMF. Enjoy! 🤙🏼💕

Thank you to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for an early copy of this audiobook. As always, this review is my honest feedback and given voluntarily.

The first half of the book was absolutely amazing! The fantasy plot and characters were extremely well written... Then the book turned into extremely detailed smut. I was not prepared for the amount of smut and really just wanted to get back to the amazing plot. The narrators were really good. The book was just not what I expected based on the first half.

The storyline of this was interesting enough that I wanted to know what would happen next, and the spice kept me listening after that. I will say that Amy Pennza clearly writes some super spicy MMF fantasy! I definitely loved the way the polyamory was woven into the storyline and that it wasn’t just a love triangle but a why-choose.

The Frostbound Queen audiobook had my full attention, right from the start! I went into this book somewhat unaware of exactly what type of romance this was — needless to say, I was in for a treat as the spicy scenes started. 🌶️

This multi-POV MMF romantasy audiobook was done so well, and all three narrators were perfect for their roles. The plot was light but entertaining, and the well-written spice was abundant!

If you’re looking for a spicy book rec with the following tropes, give this book a read:

* Elemental fae
* Sleeping with the enemy
* Age gap
* MMF romance with MM scenes
* Slowburn to spicy!
* Standalone with a happily ever after

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for this ALC to enjoy and honestly review!