Dani’s ex–best friend, MacKayla Lane, wants her dead, the terrifying Unseelie princes have put a price on her head, and Inspector Jayne, the head of the police force, is after her sword and will stop at nothing to get it. What’s more, people are being mysteriously frozen to death all over the city, encased on the spot in sub-zero, icy tableaux.
When Dublin’s most seductive nightclub gets blanketed in hoarfrost, Dani finds herself at the mercy of Ryodan, the club’s ruthless, immortal owner. He needs her quick wit and exceptional skill to figure out what’s freezing Fae and humans dead in their tracks—and Ryodan will do anything to ensure her compliance.
Dodging bullets, fangs, and fists, Dani must strike treacherous bargains and make desperate alliances to save her beloved Dublin—before everything and everyone in it gets iced.
Comment: I got this book because I ended up liking the Fever series a lot and after knowing this would be a sort of spin off of that series and that it would keep up the happenings from the Fever world, I decided I had to read it. I got the book back in March but only this month I went into it.
This story follows the action right after the end of Shadowfever, the last installment in the Fever series. Now, the protagonist is teenager Dani O'Malley. Dani is a naive but brave young girl who only wants to restore Dublin to its time before the walls between our world and the fae have gone down. She has her powers and the help of unique characters, but she is a girl without the control of a supposed grown up, so she is reckless too. Will Dani be able to help the city and its human inhabitants before the fae rule it all?
I have to be honest. When I knew this would be about Dani I had hoped it would be an adult Dani. I purposely stayed away from reviews and any reference to this book because I wanted to see how Dani would be as a grown up and how her relationship with everyone else would be like. The only thing I really remember about this book was something the author said before the book was finished! She said no way would Dani have a romance as a teenager. I think the point was to calm the readers who thought she would insert sexual tension while Dani was still a child which would be disgusting. Ms Moning settled people's minds and said no, she would only have a romance when she was an adult. I didn't read anything else, ever, so I expected tis series about Dani to be with an older version of her but obviously the author has other ideas and Dani is still a child. I don't have any particular love towards teenage books but this one, despite a teenager voice as a narrator, isn't for young people.
Still, after finishing the book and despite understanding why the author decided to build up her story like that and why she presented the possibilities to come, meaning, we can easily see why some things happen, namely how the romance will develop in the future and why is it being told the way it is.
Of course one has to focus on the romance side of things because in terms of action everything is pretty basic, there's a mystery, an unknown evil part using ice as a weapon and the heroes of this novel will have to save the day, in particular Dani and her special abilities. But nothing is black and white here, there are lots of actions in shades of grey and not always we understand exactly what might happen when related to personal situations because, like I said, in terms of plot I think this book is simple. But what might happen to every character, what each little apparent unimportant action means to each person's future...there's a lot to wonder about.
The characters...
Obviously Dani is the key character here and we learn a lot about her personality, her childish way of seeing the world despite having done things too heavy for her consciousness. I guess it can be tricky to accept her not so good actions but if we consider her age and her innocence in seeing the world and why some people act the way they do, we can set apart that side of hers from the one that grew up too fast. My opinion is she is still innocent in everything, she is a clueless teenager. Even the killing and the violence in her life wasn't rooted on her being, on her decision making. She is a kid in every word, she acts and thinks like a child and I can't put that aside, even to not judge her reactions to things that an adult would see through. In fact, I kind of agreed with many of her reactions. Why do grown ups have to make such stupid things sometimes? I know she wasn't right, but I agree with her reasons..tricky situation and very much the author's intention, after all we all were teenagers even if many readers wanted to catalog Dani's actions and childish attitudes as a grown up. It's not the same thing and this was the main reason why I gave the book a better mark.
The other characters...we see their role by Dani's POV in the most part, so we have to read between the lines and this surely bothers many readers. But although I could understand the other characters' actions, it still annoyed me how different Christian is, and how Ryodan acts like such an arrogant at times and how Jo and Kat took unwise decisions. Sometime you just want to make them act smart.
In the end, this book was positive to me, because I kind of read it seeing what would mean to the future of the series. Was it done right? I can't tell but apparently many readers thought it was wrong in its execution. I really could separate all the "icky" potential but it's still difficult if we think of this as a possibility for romance, which this isn't. I think this is one of those cases that the whole picture would feel better than just these snapshots one at a time...
For me, it worked, but it's not that I feel eager to repeat nor do I feel crazy waiting for the next one...
Grade: 7/10
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