Dreams of Ice and Shadow by Kathryn Troy (Frostbite Trilogy, Book #2)
Release Day: July 23, 2024
Since I loved Troy's book, The Shadow of Theron, and the first book in this trilogy, A Vision in Crimson, I again volunteered to be part of the "street team" for social media promotion and received a review copy of the book--in the form of an e-galley and finally an e-book. It took me so long to read because I don't like reading on my computer, but once I got the e-book, I zipped through it. This is definitely one where I recommend reading in order.
Like Troy's other books, the writing is vivid, intense, and dense with literary references. This one particularly gets to some Narnian deep cuts--"If the person who possesses the stone speaks a single magical word, known only by a select few...[they will have the power to destroy the world]." We learn this, of course, from a character named Drigory. I really can't improve on the author's description of the books as "Dracula meets Narnia but smutty."
While I'd say the first book, comparatively, focuses more on Luca, this one is more Kate's journey, and we see more of what's been teased about her erratic powers and the threat of how Luca may need to "save" her with his bite. The beginning of the novel is particularly striking and certainly gets the reader's attention, and this reader's laughter, as it opens with Alaric attempting to take advantage of being placed in a female body and ends with an impressive fighting sequence from Kate, which gains our heroes a new ally as well as a formidable and mysterious new foe.
Then, it's back to taking care of business, from Luca's unfinished encounter with Dracula to the sacrifice Kate is determined to make to fix her past mistakes. We learn more about Kate's past, including some she does not yet even know. When the book ends, our heroes are once again united and set to face the lurking enemy introduced in the first act of Book 2.
I loved the writing and the characters, but this book felt a little more disjointed than the previous one, especially toward the end. There are a lot of fascinating elements at play here, and it's hard to juggle all of them into a cohesive narrative. I also wished for a little more Alaric, and some plot elements seemed resolved too easily; on the other hand, I'm tantalized by the elements that were not resolved in this book, so I'm motivated to read the third, and if that's not the job of a satisfying second book of a trilogy, then I don't know what is!
Received for review from the author; all opinions are my own.
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