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Title: A Touch of Stone and Snow
Author: Milla Vane
Sub-genre: Fantasy
Trope(s): Childhood friends to lovers
So not going to lie guys, I have had trouble focusing on my books the past few days. I saved this one for last in August because I was so looking forward to it, but I really struggled to get into it. It picked up for me in the end, and it’s most likely just, you know, the state of the world bringing me down, but this one didn’t do it for me like the last one did.
Lizzan has been exiled from Koth for years after she leads her battalion into what turns out to be a massacre. She’s branded a coward for being the only one to survive said massacre and her name is stricken from the books, meaning no one is even allowed to acknowledge her presence. So she leaves Koth to escape the shame. Originally, she had hoped her best friend Aerax, a bastard of the king, would come with her, but he stays on Koth, despite himself once having been stricken from the books. But a plague leaves Aerax as one of only three remaining royal family members, causing him to be legitimized. With that comes certain royal secrets, information that leads Aerax to make an important decision. Lizzan and Aerax are reunited while the separate nations are trying to form an alliance against the Destroyer, and Lizzan–looking for redemption–takes on a mission to protect Aerax with her life. But trying to stem their romantic feelings for one another is difficult when the two are constantly thrust together. A whole bunch of political stuff happens, there’s a giant monster battle, and things do eventually get sexy, all leading to a happy ending for the best friends to lovers.
Alright. So I think the main reason this one didn’t grab me from the get go was the slow lead up to the relationship stuff between Lizzan and Aerax. Even though the first book in the series was significantly longer and had a ton of world-building in it, the relationship between the hero and heroine began pretty much right away. This one focused on lots of other stuff before we really got to dig in to the meat of the love story. I ended up liking the dynamic between the two, but for me, there wasn’t enough focus on the romance in this one. I love some good world-building and political intrigue, but I still want the romance to be front and center and I didn’t feel like that was the case with this one. It’s also possible that the first one was so good that it set the standard super high, and that’s why this one wasn’t a homerun for me. Either way, it was good, but not great, but I’m definitely tuning in to the next one.
Overall Rating: 4 stars