MELT MY HEART by A.R. Perry

Rating: A fuzzy robe and a room with a snowy view

Summary: Sammy spends most of her senior year spring break ski trip in the lodge, where she meets an intriguing new boy who might be enough to distract her from the fact that she's hopelessly in love with her best friend.

Would you read more from this author? Yes.


Sammy has two problems at the start of this novel: she's in love with best friend (who has no clue) and she's committed to going on a ski trip even though she doesn't like skiing. The fact that she doesn't like skiing was hard for me seeing as my family loves it to the point we're building a house at a ski area. I was also saddened by the fact that the author has obviously either never skied or did it so long ago that she doesn't remember details and thus doesn't realize things like if you're hurting your ankles you have a very serious problem with your boots and it's really hard to fall on your tailbone skiing without having a serious knee injury. (You fall on your side. Falling either backward or forward is hampered by the skis being on your feet. And your ankles are held in place because the boots are tight and hard. First day complaints are much more likely to be about being cold from the snow, being hot from overdressing, hurting your wrist because you don't fall properly, hitting your hip too often, or causing all your leg muscles to hurt because you keep tensing up. Sore ankles and a bruised tailbone sound more like first day ice skating problems to me.) And Sammy's resistance to going to her prepaid lessons had me wanting to throttle her. (PSA: Your first several days skiing should involve a professional instructor. In the States, look for someone who is PSIA certified. Also, when your parents already spent money on lessons, it's pretty bratty not to take them just because you don't feel like it.)

So... Yeah. Sammy came across as a bit of a brat at first glance. Does she think her parents have infinite money that they can throw around on buying her ski passes, lessons, and equipment rental? Even before she got hurt, she clearly didn't intend to ski. Even if she wanted to go on the trip to hang with her friends when they got off the slopes, she could have saved a LOT of money by refusing to buy any of the other stuff she wasn't going to use. (Yegads, I feel old saying all that! But seriously, kid.)

Other than the selfish wasting of money, which is pretty easy to explain by "She's a teenager" I liked Sammy alright. She's the bookish shy-type who undervalues herself and makes me think of teen-me. She'd rather read a book than party and would have bailed when the friend who she trusted to help her on the trip got banned from it if she wasn't such a sucker for Cole's pleading.

I liked Cole more than Sammy herself. He was a good guy who got along with almost everyone, almost to the point that it was a flaw. He tried to get Sammy out of her comfort zone when she needed it and let her hermit-up when she didn't. And I guess he reminded me a bit of my husband with his enthusiasm for skiing and easy distraction at parties, where he would beg Sammy to go but then wind up fluttering around talking to other people and ignoring her. (My husband does that all the time. It has nothing to do with his feelings for me and everything to do with his puppy-like enthusiasm for being around people.)

Potential Love Interest Hudson rubbed me wrong from the get-go, but that could have been because it was so obvious Sammy was going to end up with Cole. Conversely, the guy who was supposed to be an obnoxious jerk struck me as decent and having good intentions overall, but that could have been because I liked Cole from the start and figured he wouldn't hang with someone who actually was an asshole.

The plot had few, if any, real surprises for me, but I don't mind a certain amount of predictability. This is one of those books that isn't about where things are going but how they're going to get there, and as such was a fun and comfortable read that I honestly enjoyed. I recommend it for YA romance readers looking for something cozy and cute.

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Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers.

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Notes

2% Ski trip! Wooohoooo!

9% I'm assuming Cole doesn't date because he wants to be with our narrator and hasn't figured out she thinks of him like that yet. Also, I fully relate to whole "He ignores me when we go places" thing. My husband has always done the same thing. It has nothing to do with lack of affection.

12% Yeah, Cole wants to be alone with Sammy. And I don't thinks it's because he had a fight with Eva.

20% I'm not sure Ian is as awful as Sammy thinks he is.

29% Um.. Something is wrong if she's hurting her ankles. They shouldn't be moving much. And you don't really fall on your tailbone skiing, that's more of a snowboarding thing. You fall on your hip and you hurt your knees. ... And, yeah, she should have waited for the instructor.

29% OMG! Why aren't they wearing helmets??? How is their school allowing that?

40% There's something about this guy I don't like. I don't think it's just that he's not a skier.

45% Yeah, I was pretty sure it was Cole texting.

67% I think Ian is honestly trying to be helpful here. Here's obviously trying to get Cole and Sammy to admit to get like each other.

69% A sports car is appropriate for winter if it's a WRX. She has a point about Mustangs though.

72% I strongly suspect Hudson has a girlfriend.

78% Ok, maybe not a girlfriend. But hooking up with other people at the lodge is close.

81% Finding on the slopes when you can ski is hard enough, chica. Wait by the lifts if you must, but going up without knowing what you're doing isn't a grand gesture, it's just dumb.

81% Wait, she's taking steps in the lift line? Is this a gondola? (It isn't. The shuffling behaviour of a newbee in a lift line was just poorly described.)

82% Oooh. Didn't lift her tips. You can get really hurt that way... And they usually stop the lift when someone does that.

82% PIZZA? SHE'S SNOWPLOWING! This is painful to read.

87% Yay! We have resolution! :)

90% Yep, Ian was trying to help. And has been for years because he's not actually an asshole.

91% Yeah, I didn't think Dad would be oblivious.

94% Im glad they're still happy after a year. But I cannot stress enough how much Sammy needs an actual ski instructor.

99% THE END
That was really sweet. I like this book. But they really need to contact PSIA before Sammy really hurts herself or someone else.

The STARK SPRINGS ACADEMY series by Ali Dean

Rating: A sweet pair of new skis and your favorite snow conditions.

Summary: Ski racer Roxie starts her junior year of high school at the prestigious Stark Springs Academy, known for turning out some of the hottest winter-sports talent in the world. There she takes her skiing up several notches, makes new friends, develops a few enemies, and finds true love.

Would you read more from this author? I definitely plan on it.


I bought this series as a set and read them back-to-back, so I am going to discuss them all here. Honestly, you could read the first one and leave it at that if all you want is to learn what happens when a spunky ski racer from Vermont moves to Colorado to meet her hot but arrogant match. You'd be making what I would consider a mistake though as I found the third book in the series to be the strongest, but also the one that stands alone the least.

We start with Black Diamond. New girl Roxie is starting at Stark Springs Academy as a junior even though most of their students start in middle school. It quickly becomes obvious that the rules in the student handbook her parents signed off on aren't the real rules here. The real rules are whatever Ryker Black says they are. And Ryker has taken an obvious interest in Roxie. She's attracted to him, but doesn't want a relationship that's only on his terms. Besides, she's here to ski.

The next novel, Double Black, builds off the first but focuses more on Roxie as an athlete than Roxie as a potential love interest. By this book I was really appreciating that the author seems to understand not only sports in general, but snow sports specifically.

We conclude with Black Ice, which starts with the death of one of the characters being investigated as a murder. The entire series shifts in feel as we begin to learn more about why things that happened earlier happened and start to understand how deeply sensister some of the background world is. With a mystery full of soap opera-like twists, this was my favorite of the three books and took the series solidly into the category of things I loved.

Throughout the series, I enjoyed reading about Roxie. She's strong, but not so strong that she doesn't suffer from self-doubt and occasional reluctance to commit to a course of action. She's one of the best ski racers of her generation, but she starts the series confused as to how she qualified to attend Stark Springs, let alone got offered a scholarship there. Watching her grow more secure with her talent was as much fun for me as watching the development of her relationship with Ryker.

As for Ryker... He starts out larger-than-life and a tad bit hard to believe in. At twelve his mother died, by fourteen he'd taken over as CEO of her company. His parents had him ski racing competitively as a child, but when he was eleven he started teaching himself how to snowboard. Now eighteen, he's running an international corporation as well as competing internationally in snowboarding. Oh, and attending a school for elite athletes that his family happens to own. One character describes him as the mafia boss of winter sports. It's a bit much, honestly, but it reminded me of an anime setup, so I was willing to go with it. He's soon revealed to be vulnerable under his bravado, in true romantic hero fashion, and proved impossible for me to dislike. By the end, he seemed like someone I knew in real life.

Both Roxie and Ryker come with friends who prove interesting. Some of them are likable, some aren't supposed to be. I found the villainous mean girls a little over-the-top in the first novel, but like Ryker they seemed like actual people rather than cutouts by the end.

The main villain shifts a little across the story. In the first book, it's the mean girls. Ditto in the second book. But the third book not only reveals a new villain but explains some of why the mean girls were so mean.

Overall, I highly recommend this series for any readers of Young Adult fiction who like or are interested in snow sports, but also for those who like intrigue or sports in general.

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Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers.

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Notes

Black Diamond

1% I can think of a very long list of ski areas I'd name my kid after before Telluride. Mammoth is the only one I can think of that could be worse and even then I'm not sure. Telly is cute. But I really wouldn't want the word 'ride' to be in my daughter's name. (Note: my husband came up with worse places. Germany's Mount Wank is now in first, although "wank" appears to have a different meaning in German. Pennsylvania's Blue Knob would also be bad, although not if you only used the Blue part, in which case it would merely be weird. Honorable mention goes to Misery Mountain in Alberta.)

3% Yeah, I really don't understand how this guy has so much power. Over other students? Okay. But he deactivated her dorm keycard?

4% The mafia boss of winter? That sounds intriguing...

10% Okay, so he's presumptuous. But at least he's into consent.

12% I wonder what the Olga story sounds like from Ryker's POV.

14% They have snow machines? Those are rare in CO, I think, although I can see why a snow sports academy would want some.

15% It's not weird that he pretends not to know her in public. He set that condition to appease her. And, yes, he does feel his position means he has to act all tough.

15% OMG. He brought her ice cream because she looked upset. I wasn't sure about this guy before, but my heart just melted.

17% Ah. So it was the girls that framed Olga. That makes more sense than Ryker doing it.

23% Vermont girl meets 14 inches of CO powder. It's beautiful. I hope we get to see her on a several-feet day. I would like to interject here that I really appreciate that the author is actually familiar with skiing.

27% As I suspect these girls are the ones who framed Olga, I'm uneasy about the idea of hanging with them at a secret place at night.

27% Um... Yeah... Ditching her in the middle of nowhere in a snowstorm could actually kill her. Presumably she lives, but it still seems like attempted murder could be on the menu. And I don't think Ryker knows they're doing it, so they're going to get blackballed hard even if they don't go to jail.

27% Yes, when lost in mountains, go downhill. This is smart. Much smarter than going out with these people without telling anyone.

28% I really think she's making an assumption about Ryker knowing they ditched her in the wilderness. I think when he says "that night" he just means their disagreement.

30% Yeah, I really don't think Ryker wants her out of his life. He could easily have had her scholarship revoked and he didn't. Surely she'll figure this out eventually. Presumably in a big blow up after she beats Petra in this race.

30% Vermont is, in fact, an excellent place to train for ski racing for exactly the reasons gotten into here. If you can conquer East Coast Ice, nothing CO can throw at you will trip you up.

 31% We've seen no evidence that Sven and Player were involved in the attempted homicide.

32% Yep, the boys were totally innocent and are now pissed off.

32% I really like how even with all his arrogance, there's only been one time Ryker kissed Roxie without asking first.

33% THE END

Nice ending. Things are going to change and we got there with a nice progression. I appreciate the accurate sports talk and the gradual changes in Ryker and Roxie. Overall, I really liked this book. I wonder if the next one is about them or one of the other guys... Sven and Ingrid perhaps? :)


DOUBLE BLACK

37% I say, do nothing to extract revenge except ostracize them and don't tell them nothing else is coming.

38% I admit to being a little confused as to why Ryker hasn't left school. He's already running a company so who really cares if he graduated high school?

40% So Brad is going on the Europe trip... I wonder if that will be the big source of conflict this book. Because so far all we have is that Roxie is a little freaked out to be realizing how serious her relationship with Ryker is 

54% That's the second time she's referred to someone snapping out of their boots in a situation where taking off ones boots doesn't make sense. I believe in both cases what the character actually did was step out of her bindings. I'm not sure what's up with that. The first time I figured was a brain fart or the result of changing wording and getting muddled. With twice I'm wondering if the author's brain frequently misfires on the word "binding" or if this a weird ski racer phrasing I'm unfamiliar with. (Post reading note: I mentioned this to my ski instructor husband. He's never heard of snapping out of your boots being a phrase. It's only occurred twice in the history of the internet prior to now and both times were about people taking their boots off. So it was a weird brain-fart I guess. I can't say much; I released a book in which people refer to a eating in a 'dinning room' in multiple spots because apparently I think 'dining' should have another 'n' in it.)

55% I'm starting to wonder if Rocco is Ryker's biological father... I'm almost certain he was sleeping with Ryker's mom.

58% I was really worried that whole race!

59% Oh! I think I knew she was going to be hurt. It was just a question of when. I wonder if Petra did something to her binding... I don't know why she would have popped out like that otherwise.

59% Well, it certainly sounds like SOMEONE did something to her bindings. Petra seems the obvious culprit. She had already proven a willingness to kill Roxie.

60% I don't like how "I don't like you talking to guys I don't trust" the dudes in this story are.

61% Yep, Petra did it. And is getting suspended from racing for at least the season. And is lucky Roxie isn't involving the police.

63% Nice entrance, Ryker!

64% Ok. Paternity test says Ted was the baby daddy. But there's more to this for it to be a big secret... Was his mom's death murder?

65% Oh, wow. His mom's death was murder. And he's never exposed that fact. I can see why he'd be worried about Roxie knowing that. (Although Rocco saying he'd seen the antifreeze documentary already seemed suspicious to me, especially combined with her being poisoned the day after she told him she wasn't leaving her husband for him.)

66% Petra's dead. Shit. That went from really happy to ominous awfully fast.


BLACK ICE

67% Petra died in a car crash? So no one is under investigation for murder or guilty they drove her to suicide or anything dramatic? Bit of a let down really.

67% Ah. Roxie does think something hinky happened the night Petra died and thinks there's an ongoing investigation. I wonder if Ryker's dad killed her thinking it would make Ryker happy. Or that Roxie would be blamed and he could get rid of her that way.

67% I'm pretty confident it wasn't Ryker who killed Petra. But suspecting him of murder is a nice tension for the book.

68% Someone cut the brakes on Petra's car. I'm surprised they kept that quiet for six months. But Ryker telling everyone that makes him seem innocent of involvement to me. (And he obviously didn't do it himself as he was in another country at the time.)

69% It was on Ryker's insistence that the police examined the car. Yeah, that definitely implies he want behind it.

71% I suspect Ryker suspects Winter and/or Aspen. The idea did occur to me that they could have wanted revenge for her idea getting them blackballed. ... Rocco might also fit the "I'm disappointed in you and capable of murder" profile if he was the one who killed Ryker's mom rather than Ted doing it.

72% Roxie clearly doesn't think Ryker's the one who left his mother's journal in her room. Who else could it have been? Rocco or his sister maybe? Why? Could Coach Hoffman have had it and be trying to leave clues that can't be traced to him? How would any of these people have gotten it?

78% The sequel to the first journal... Interesting.

79% What she is describing is gropple, not hail. Why do people call all icy things falling from the sky hail?

80% Olga sounds like trouble. I don't know why, but I'm trusting Aspen's account of her.

86% So either Olga or Winter would have been able to cut Petra's brake lines. And they both had motive.

87% Ryker got the third journal. Interesting.

88% TED was having an affair? With Nadia Hoffman? Whoa. Could she have been the one who killed Ryker's mom because Ted wouldn't leave her and then killed her own daughter for embarrassing her? This book is such a soap opera! I love it!

90% I'm increasingly thinking Ted didn't poison his wife. And I'm wondering if he's the one who gave the kids the journals.

91% Yeah, Petra seems pretty well redeemed. Although maybe she reminds me of my character Rina. (Rina was sidekick to the mean girl in OF FUR AND ICE but unlike Petra wasn't involved in the worst thing her bestie did. She was then the lead in OF SNOW AND WHISKERS, which was largely about how abusive her relationship with said bestie was.)

91% I'm not sure why they waited so long to have sex. They've been together a full year, declared themselves in love ages ago, and sleep next to each other all the time. I do like the handling of the actual sex though. No play-by-plays, just it happened and everyone is happy.

92% How does Nadia know where Petra took Roxie? Did Petra tell her mom? And this seems really obvious...

94% How does one secure a hostage to a snowmobile and still be able to drive it? Asking for a friend...

96% If Nadia had those journals at some point, she really should have burned the last one.

98% So Nadia's still messed up. It's curious that someone so deranged isn't considered insane enough to plead instantly. I agree she wouldn't be, but it does make you question the naming if the defense.

98% THE END
I like it. It leaves me optimistic about Roxie and Ryker's future. A nice happy ending.

WHILE YOU WERE SKIING by Lucy McConnell

Rating: A comfortable sweatshirt from a local ski area

Summary:  After a lift attendant's skier crush is saved by her quick actions, he tells people they're engaged. Then he falls asleep for days as our poor liftie is left trying to determine what she should do.

Would you read more from this series? This series seems kind of weird. There are several authors writing to it, some of whom describe their work as Christian fiction and others of which, like McConnell, write secularly. I might read some them if I get back into Kindle Unlimited ( I signed up for three months for $3 but can't justify a regular subscription.) but I'm not leaning toward purchasing them. And I can't request them from my library because they are indie published and on Kindle Unlimited.

Note: This is an adult romance, but does not contain sex scenes.


This title had my full attention as soon as I saw it. My mind went, "While You Were Sleeping at a ski resort! Yes, please!" It both was and wasn't a retelling of the movie, though.

The book starts similar to to the film with a first person narrator talking about what her father tried to teach her before he died. It then switches to third person, which makes sense if you think of it as a movie, I suppose, but which I was a bit jarred by. And we never see anything aside from Mia's close third, so it could have been told entirely in first. Perhaps that doesn't fit into the series, though.

The main character in the movie, played by Sandra Bullock, is a Chicago subway worker named Lucy. I see why the name was changed for this book. The author is named Lucy, so here we get to follow someone named Mia. Mia is a lift attendant at a local ski hill in a vague mountain range. She has a crush on a guy named Ryder, who is somehow a skier rather than a snowboarder. He's a season pass holder who likes to flirt with her as he passes by but they haven't really talked very much. Nevertheless, when a pair of kids who should have banned from the resort months ago jostle him off a ski lift and he falls to the ground, he tells responders that she's his fiancee.

Those familiar with the film will recognize that this is an important deviation of plot. Although the base problem of "People think they're engaged when they're not" remains, the misconception now comes from the man lying about it (or possibly being so confused by a concussion that he's delirious) rather than the woman saying something that is misunderstood.

A second vital deviation then occurs. Just before being given something that knocks him out for the next several days, Ryder begs Mia, "Don't tell my family." And this is a problem because she already knows, and is close to, his estranged family. In fact, she's kind of half-dating his brother despite there being no sparks between them.

Mia now has to figure out whether Ryder really believes they're engaged and what it means if he does. And she feels she needs to take care of him. And she gets to worry about whether it's really okay not to tell his dad when she sees him, because he's always been really good to her and treated her like a daughter.

Nothing is really resolves when Ryder wakes up and continues to insist they're getting married. Mia can't tell if he really believes it or if he's messing with her, and doesn't want to risk upsetting him by asking because the doctor said he should avoid excitement.

I spent most of the book being uncertain if I was happy I remembered the source material so well or dismayed I'd ever seen it. There are a lot of Easter Eggs for those who know the film, my favorite of which is the conversation about leaning, but so much of the story is completely different that I felt somewhat as though I might have been happier without my brain constantly comparing the plots. It was a little like if I expected the plot of The Princess Bride and got something about someone named Bluebelle who was kidnapped by the Dread Pirate Bob but was actually in love with Prince La-dee-da, who sends the four fastest ships in his navy to rescue her and get her back to the castle in time for their wedding. I think I actually enjoyed the experience, but the comparisons were distracting.

Mia is a unobjectionable young woman who is trying to figure out her values. She's happier as a liftie than she is working in the marketing office, but the marketing office is a year-round position that utilizes her college degree and pays enough she can think about buying a house. But which is better for long-term happiness, a job she loves or financial security? To her credit, when a relationship with Ryder becomes something that could happen, she never once goes, "Well, he already owns a house... I could marry him and keep my outdoor job..." But she really doesn't seem to know much about him other than she's attracted to him and he doesn't get along with his family before she decides she's in love with him.

Ryder isn't a particularly deep character. He doesn't get along with his family because... I don't know. There was something about how he felt his step-mom was meant to be a replacement for his dead mother. He never clicked with her and resented his dad for remarrying. And just ignores his half-siblings because... I never really figured that out. They were all super nice people who showed no indication that they were anything other than loving and supportive of him. Nor did I figure out why he lived in this small town when he wasn't talking to his family. He's likable enough, though. He has a likable dog and isn't a slob, although he doesn't know how to cook. He has a job, although I don't think he's very good at it. (He's a lawyer, but signs an agreement not to sue the ski area over his accident even though they were grossly negligent in not kicking the kids who caused the accident off the mountain. The kids had been doing the same thing that got him hurt for months and the lifties had reported it to management as a serious safety concern. I can think of no justification for their passes not being revoked and them not being banned. Even after they nearly killed someone, there is no mention of them not being allowed back next season.)

This book is rather short, only 120 pages, so I'm classifying it under the tag novellas rather than calling it a full novel. And that's probably a lot of my problem with it. 120 pages isn't enough time to explore much depth, to get people from "We flirt some" to Happily Ever After with any believable detail. The conflicts are all easily solved, tension never gets built up about anything, and I was left feeling a bit disconnected. Oddly enough, the film that inspired this is also short and light, not to mention the fact that I've seen it at least a dozen times, but it always has more of an impact on me when I watch it than this did. But maybe I just like Bill Pullman?

I picked this up assuming I'd be tagging it with "sports" but it merely gets "snow." Mia is actually a skier and seems to understand the sport alright, but we never see any actual skiing. Oh, well. It is pretty cool to have a book about a lift attendant as it's a vital job in the ski industry but also not very glamorous.

So, to summarize... This book is a solid "alright" to me. I had hoped for more since the title promised it was going to combine two things I love, but I'm not upset I spent the time to read it.

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Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers.

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Notes

I'm assuming this is a retelling of While You Were Sleeping

3% Starts out with dead dad instilling wisdom just like in the movie. The exception is the daughter is adopted by a B&B by a ski resort instead of left to her own devices in Chicago.

4% Shift from first person to third is off-putting. I guess it mimics the movie, which had a first person voice over delivering the backstory but was obviously third person as it was a movie. Mia is a liftie rather than working public transit, but she'll have the same "He passes me and smiles" thing going I assume 

6% These kids should have their passes revoked. Both of them, so it doesn't matter what their names are.

13% So he's the one who claims they're engaged and it isn't just a misunderstanding. Interesting change. It's he confused about who she is or has he been crushing on her all season?

22% Wait... She's been on dates with the brother?

31% I'd going to the movies isn't a date with Carter, then what were the dates they've supposedly been on?

52% He's awake! And still pretending they're engaged. Presumably he's hoping she'll go along with it long enough to decide she wants to keep him?

55% Why is she asking what he means about leaning? Has she not seen While You Were Sleeping?

83% Okay... So Ryder has made up with his family without Mia doing anything. Good for him?

89% Preserved the "I'm in love with your son. No, not that one.." bit.

92% Proposal on the ski lift. Nice.

94% "When did you fall in love with me?" "While you were skiing." I guess that's accurate, because I didn't see her do it in the book.

95% The End

It's cute. I was never quite sure why they decided they were in love rather than attraction, but it was a sweet story.

PRINCESS CLAUS AND THE GREAT ESCAPE by J.L. Gillham

Rating: A snowglobe with a Christmas village inside of it

Highlight of note: Our lead is set to be the first female Santa!

Will you read more in this series? Hopefully. None have been published yet, but I am interested in what happens next.

Noelle, AKA Princess Claus, is the daughter of the current Santa. She lives at the North Pole with her family, lots of elves, some reindeer, and a pet polar bear. The tagline on the cover of the novel reads "Even Winter Wonderland can be a prison" but the story isn't nearly as dark as that makes it sound. Noelle does feel trapped. She's not allowed to leave the protective dome around her home because there's an evil elf out there who wants to kidnap her, and as she's a teenager this really chafes. But it's not like she's being tortured or anything.

Overall, the story is fun if not incredibly deep. I particularly liked seeing the growth in Noelle's relationship with her younger brother. They start off not liking each other at all, but find common ground and some degree of affection over the course of the novel.

My other favorite part was definitely the polar bear. He's timid and addicted to sugar. And he can fly when hooked up to Santa's sleigh. It almost goes without saying that I find the sleigh being pulled by polar bears to be a way cooler idea than having reindeer do it.

I never felt too invested in the romantic arc of the story. The love interest is likable, but he didn't seem very complicated and I was a bit put off by the fact that Noelle only appears to know two guys her age who aren't related to her and seems to feel they are the only romantic choices she has. The other guy we don't get to see until the end. There's some hint that the next book may have more of a love triangle conflict, but I think it's going to require this second fellow move to closer to Winter Wonderland.

I found it a bit hard to feel too sorry for Noelle, who clearly wanted me to feel sorry for her. Maybe I'm getting old, but I looked at her escape attempts and said stuff like, "You know you'll need money, right? Have you heard of ID?" and "You're just now asking where the nearest airport is? Seriously? Where did you think you were going running out into the countryside of Alaska?" Basically, I was hoping she'd fail to escape because I didn't want to watch her freeze to death or get eaten by a polar bear that hadn't been raised as a pet. And that was without taking the evil elf into consideration. All of this foolishness may be explained by her being young and very sheltered, but she felt more like a twelve-year-old than a seventeen-year-old to me.

As for the "I don't know that I want to be Santa" thing... I felt that was something that really should have been brought up in a conversation with her parents. She tries to talk to them exactly once. She says "Let's do this thing!" without explaining why she thinks it will help her, then storms out when they say "We can't do this thing!" without letting her parents fully explain their side. This is, I'll admit, somewhat accurate to how many teenagers behave. I would have liked to see more effort from her parents, though. They seem aware that something is up with her but never sit her down and try to talk to her about it, let alone force her to sit in a room until things have been discussed. Her mom says near the end that it might have been a mistake not to tell her certain things earlier and I was like, "No duh, Mom." Overall, I thought it would make a more interesting story if it was Noelle's brother who was supposed to be Santa and she was arguing that it should go to the firstborn child, not the firstborn son. (Also, if it's always been the firstborn child rather than son, how have we gone this long without a female inheriting? That seems statistically unlikely as the Santas appear to want to hand the job over by the time they're forty.)

I felt Noelle's parents were doing a bad job of passing on the Santa torch. Not only did they never actually talk to Noelle about why it was important she, and not her brother, be the new Santa, they never explained why she had to take on this mantle on her seventeenth birthday. Her father did plan on doing the Christmas Eve run with her the first few years rather than just tossing her into it like apparently happened to him despite his dad still being alive, but he never explains why it's happening now rather than after his daughter is grown. It's pretty obvious Noelle isn't mature enough to be more than an apprentice, if that, at the start of all of this, so I assume there's a reason for not saying, "You know what, we'll do the whole coronation thing when you're twenty one. Or maybe thirty," but the only clue we're given is that Dad seems tired.

As to Noelle' grandparents... Both sets live in Winter Wonderland, but we never see any of them. The closest we come is a cameo by her grandmother's dog. I'm not sure what was up with that. As indicated earlier, I don't quite get what triggers Santa handing the job down to his offspring and I never figured out what he does after he's stopped being Santa.

The villain was very shallow, although it looks like the next book in the series will flesh him out some. He doesn't have any motivation in this book other than the standard "ruin Christmas" desire villains in stories like this tend to get assigned. I'm hoping that when we see him again later we'll get more about why he's trying to take down Santa.

So, yeah, there were some problems with this book, but I did enjoy it and fully intend to read the next installment whenever it gets released. And actual teens may find it easier to relate to Noelle than I did. I recommend it as a playful Santa story for people who are looking for more fun than depth. Which, let's face is, is a lot of people in December as the holiday stress makes many of us desperate for escape.

Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers.

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Notes

6% These elves seem more like dwarves, but okay.

8% Santa's sleigh being pulled by flying by polar bears would be way cooler than reindeer.

9% I have no idea what she thinks will happen when she runs away. Is she not aware that money is a thing she'll need? You know, in addition to there being someone who wants to kidnap her.

12% Cracked snow globe doesn't sound good

13% I'm not sure who the boy with her brother is or if his presence is related to the broken snow globe. I assumed she would have recognized Cole.

13% Yeah, so the snow globe represents the shield around their house. She should probably tell her parents it's broken.

14% I'm not sure how she managed to forget about finding a secret tunnel already. I would think finding a secret passage in your house would stand out in your memory.

16% Finn has drinkable eyes, huh?

17% A box of whale blubber? WTF? Also, how does Noelle recognize what it is? Does the Santa family routinely murder whales? If I saw some, I'd probably be like, "Something bloody and foul smelling" but wouldn't know exactly what it was.

17% So the town outside Santa's globe is in Alaska. Okay. I would have thought Greenland or Lapland, but fine. Maybe we're going with the idea that North Pole is so obvious because no one would suspect a real connection to Santa somewhere that garishly Christmas.

17% If Finn and Nicky are good friends, shouldn't Noelle have deduced he was the one following her brother in the workshop?

18% Anyone who needs warned that hot chocolate is hot has a problem that should probably be taken into consideration if you're wanting to form a romantic bond with them...

19% She's clearly going to be annoyed with Finn for sharing the secret she blabbed, but she didn't wait long enough to see what he was gossiping about. My money is on it having been the hot chocolate being yummy.

20% She doesn't even know where town is? It seems she really should have researched all this before she started making escape attempts.

30% So apparently the gossip was the she's a flirt? Weird...

43% And now she says she did hear him tell others about the actual secret. Although I don't think she actually told him not to tell people that, so being pisses a year later seems like a lot.

44% This dapper dude at the beach seems out of place. I'm betting he's the evil elf.

50% Animal stowaway, huh? So evil elf shape shifts or has a trained animal?

53% Someone rerouted her string and she isn't curious about this?

57% I'd be more curious about why the sim was cancelled. I'm assuming its safety features are turned off or something.

75% Finn says he didn't blad about the evil elf and is amused she thinks he did. I'm back to thinking he was telling the girls about the hot chocolate and the narration saying otherwise was unreliable.

76% Hmm... I don't know why the snow globe started healing. Is it because Noelle is close to fixing things with Finn? I've been thinking for a while that it will repair itself when she accepts being Santa.

78% Dapper Guy from the Beach was the evil elf! How... Not surprising. It might have been surprising if he was more stealthy, like if the hikers wound up being Evil Guy and His Evil Wife.

82% Evil Elf was pretty easy to defeat. Although I suppose not everyone would have a pet polar bear with a sweet tooth at the ready.

83% Yep, Finn was talking about the hot chocolate.

86% If it's always just the firstborn, it seems statistically unlikely there wouldn't have been another female...

91% I'm not sure I like her mom's reaction to being told she doesn't want to marry young. Makes me wonder if there's going to be a sequel along the line of the second Santa Clause, the one about the Mrs Clause.

93% Cole's into Noelle. We've hardly seen him so it's hard to care too much though.

98% Kissing Finn. He's not a bad love interest, but I kinda felt the only thing keeping them apart was the misunderstanding that I never fell for.

THE END

Overall, I'm kinda underwhelmed. Did search for the next one though in the hopes it will have more romantic tension than this one. It isn't out yet.

THROUGH THE WHITE WOOD by Jessica Leake

Rating: A large scoop of gourmet vanilla bean ice cream in a waffle cone

Highlight of note: The main character freezes things, something I liked well before Elsa ever appeared. :) And she's followed around by a remarkably intelligent eagle, which is just nifty. Not as good as being followed by a dragon, sure, but still interesting.

Will you read more by this author? Most likely, yes. There is a previous work that centered around two of the secondary characters in this book that is on my to-be-read list.

This is another fantasy set in a historical Russia. It seems like there have been a fair number of these recently. In this case, the time is approximately a thousand years ago and the place mostly Kiev.

The action starts with our main character, Katya, tied up by her village. The local prince's representatives sweep in and whisk her away to the capital. Despite the fact that they treat her very nicely, even to the point of welcoming the eagle who always follows her around, she assumes she's be taken to her execution. Why execute her? She has magic powers, the power to turn things to ice. It's soon revealed she has used this power on people in her village, so execution would seem fitting if one believed she was truly in control of her power and knew what she was doing. But she wasn't and she didn't.

At this point, I rather wished I hadn't read the description of the book because I would have had no idea where things were going. So in that spirit, I will go ahead and tell you that I recommend this book. The writing is lush and engaging, the characters likable and strong, and the plot engaging. If you want to start it with no spoilers at all, I wouldn't blame you for ignoring the rest of this write-up and finding a copy without knowing anything else.

So... Let's get a little more spoilery....

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Okay. They're not leading her to her execution. Which you probably guessed because that would make this book really short considering that our MC is also a first person narrator. The people who were sent after her are knights in the prince's court. They can't freeze things, but they have their own magic powers and are tasked with helping her to understand and control hers. One of them can travel through shadows. One can block magic users from their powers. One can manipulate plants. Eventually, we meet people who can control earth and fire.

The knights are detailed characters and their interactions with each other, the prince, and Katya all seem very genuine. The prince is intriguing and I found myself really pulling for him and understanding why the others follow him. Katya herself is also likable and plagued by personal mysteries that I found myself intrigued by, even though a few of the answers were obvious to me well before she figured them out.

The romantic arc was cute and heartfelt. Was it realistic? Depends on what you mean by that. But it played out well I thought.

The conclusion was satisfactory. It was solid enough to make this very much a stand alone novel, but leaves plenty of opportunity for a sequel. The fact that we saw characters from one of Leake's previous works in this one makes me suspect we may see more of Katya even if she isn't the star of another book.

I did find the villains to be a little too simplistic, which I think may be what made this a book I liked rather than a book I loved. I would have loved to have seen better motives out of them and more conflict with the character who was once close to the prince but betrayed him.

Overall, I found Through the White Wood enjoyable and will be looking for other works by Leake.

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Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers.

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Notes
6% I really like this bird. The only way to make her more awesome would be to turn her into a dragon

8% I really wish I hadn't read the cover copy and this didn't know this mysterious prince has similar powers to Katya. It would add a bit more suspense not to know that 

18% Whoever selected these tapestries was certainly morbid.

22% Keeping birds of prey on hoods all the time has always struck me as cruel. That puts a damper on this scene, which I assume is meant to humanize the prince by showing him caring about his birds.

28% So fire and ice must work together to save the land. I'm guessing the prince is a fire elemental.

32% Yep, the prince wields fire.

34% This secret exit, which is presumedly also an entrance, does not seem at all secure.

38% The destruction of the village is really gory. Also, our girl should have stolen a horse. Or, hell, asked for one. The prince was begging her to fight these invaders, so he would presumedly have helped.

44% How does this party not have a healer? I mean, I guess maybe the healers died, but they should have been keeping to the back. And, really, shouldn't most of the soldiers have basic first aid if not something better? And shouldn't there be a pack of clean strips for wounds even if the healer did die? These people seem very poorly prepared for arm conflict considering that they were riding out because of an invasion force.

45% I had assumed that Gosudar was a title or honorific people used for addressing the prince, but now they're using it as though it's his name. As in, "Take this to Gosudar." The absence of an article there is confusing me. Google says the word is Russian for prince, so it doesn't seem likely that it really is his name, but then shouldn't people be saying THE gosudar?

 47% The prince's name is Alexander. And Grigori isn't just a jerk but actively a bad guy.

54% All this talk of never seeing someone transform into an animal combined with the disclosure that Katya has never seen Elation poo had me convinced the bird isn't really a bird. But it she Katya's mother, her father, or someone else?

63% So... Elation may be her dad. Because apparently Spring could not return his human life and that he's a shadow of what he was and being a bird of prey would fit that.

72% Everytime Katya talks about riding with Elation on her arm, I wonder how hard that is. Just holding your arm out for more than a hours would be really hard, but with an eagle on it? That seems extreme.

75% The Emperesses are pretty dang hurtful. I don't know they really think Sasha killed his folks, though. I suspect they just want an excuse to brush him off.

78% There's something really sexy about the prince's new power.

83% Nice battle scene. Nicer kiss.

85% Elation is male and had more advanced thoughts than animals ever do. So, yeah, pretty sure he's Katya's dad.

86% Yep, confirmed by mindmeld.

THE END
I'm not sure why Katya even tried to leave without Sasha. He knew where she was going and would obviously have followed her. 

The ending is sweet. And solid enough that it doesn't require a sequel while being open to one.