Becky's View: Cold Spell by Jackson Pearce

Cold Spell by Jackson Pearce
♦publisher: Little, Brown BYR
♦release date: November 5th, 2013
♦hardcover, 323 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦series: Fairytale retellings, book 4
  book 1: Sisters Red (my review)
  book 2: Sweetly
  book 3:Fathomless
♦source: from publisher for honest review

Kai and Ginny grew up together–best friends since they could toddle around their building’s rooftop rose garden. Now they’re seventeen, and their relationship has developed into something sweeter, complete with stolen kisses and plans to someday run away together.

But one night, Kai disappears with a mysterious stranger named Mora–a beautiful girl with a dark past and a heart of ice. Refusing to be cast aside, Ginny goes after them and is thrust into a world she never imagined, one filled with monsters and thieves and the idea that love is not enough.

If Ginny and Kai survive the journey, will she still be the girl he loved–and moreover, will she still be the girl who loved him?

Review:
I haven’t read the Fairytale Retellings series since Sister’s Red---I have no idea why, since Sisters Red remains a favorite of mine to this day.  But that’s one of the beautiful things about this series: they are companion novels that can be read as stand-alones.  The stories loosely intertwine, you get little snippets of characters and storylines from the other books, but they are wonderful just on their own.

In Cold Spell, the story of the Snow Queen is reimagined with the expert Jackson Pearce touch.  Ginny and Kai are childhood sweethearts, with big plans for their future in New York, until the mysterious and seductive Mora seems to blow in with the snow storm.  Kai inexplicably turns on Ginny and disappears with Mora into the blizzard.  Armed with just her own certainty of their love and an old scrapbook full of clues about the snow queen that belonged to Kai’s grandmother, Ginny sets out after them. Ginny is a determined heroine, real and flawed when she blindly throws herself into finding Kai at any cost. She actually starts out quite reliant on their relationship, but grows into her own, finding strength and independence through her dangerous journey.

The story as a whole is just really enjoyable, lots of excitement and creepy moments with Mora and the ferocious Fenris attacks. There are two things in particular that I loved about this story, though.  One was a sort of build-your-own-family idea.  Ginny meets many people, all very different, on her road to rescue Kai.  You have these really unique types and opposing lives; they’re all just kind of floating along until they get thrown together one way or another and become this very odd-ball family unit. I loved that.

Another thing that I loved was the way Pearce gave her Snow Queen a good dose of humanity.  Sure, it’s one thing to write a villianess that is easy to hate, who personifies evil. But what makes this great is that there are moments that let you see what is really driving her, and even put her a little into the role of a victim.

Cold Spell is a thrilling tale and one that made me want to go back and make sure I find time to read the books that I missed in this fun series of fairytale retellings. This is the final book, but I know I’ll always be eager to pick up any of Jackson Pearce’s fantasy titles in the future.

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Purchase Cold Spell: Amazon  •  BookDepository  •  Indiebound