Book Review | Frostblood by Elly Blake

Frostblood is a young adult fantasy from Elly Blake. It's the first book in the Frostblood Saga series.

Seventeen-year-old Ruby is a fireblood who must hide her powers of heat and flame from the cruel frostblood ruling class that wants to destroy all that are left of her kind. So when her mother is killed for protecting her and rebel frostbloods demand her help to kill their rampaging king, she agrees. But Ruby's powers are unpredictable, and she's not sure she's willing to let the rebels and an infuriating (yet irresistible) young man called Arcus use her as their weapon.

All she wants is revenge, but before they can take action, Ruby is captured and forced to take part in the king's tournaments that pit fireblood prisoners against frostblood champions. Now she has only one chance to destroy the maniacal ruler who has taken everything from her and from the icy young man she has come to love.

Fast-paced and compelling, Frostblood is the first in a page-turning new young adult three-book series about a world where flame and ice are mortal enemies—but together create a power that could change everything.

There are two things I noticed right away while reading Frostblood. One, it jumped straight into the action and two, the story was very typical for a YA fantasy. This was both good and bad throughout Frostblood.

On the plus side, I never lost interest in what I was reading. I enjoyed the writing, and I liked the characters. (Ruby's love interest was probably the only thing I found unique to Frostblood.) I loved that we were given a full story within Frostblood. I was so petrified by the end that I was approaching a cliffhanger, but all was well with the ending!

On the down side, there wasn't much there in terms of plot that I hadn't already read and experienced in other books. It was certainly well crafted and I enjoyed it, but I felt like I had already been there before.

I'm curious why it's firebloods and frostbloods. It couldn't have been firebloods and icebloods? (Too obvious?) Or frostbloods and emberbloods? I'd be pissed if I was a frostblood. This is ICE, bitches.

At the end of the day, I wasn't quite the target audience for Frostblood. I expected more fantasy and less romance which was entirely my fault. I enjoyed it, but I think readers interested in YA romance will probably enjoy it much more than I did. Even though part of me feels like this wasn't a good fit for me, the other part of me feels pretty sure I'll read book two.

6/10: Good Read

Review copy provided by publisher