Crown of Ice

Our Review

This is exactly the kind of book I love to read, any retelling of a fairy tale is bound to interest me in a book. As a child The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson was one of my favourite stories so when I learnt that this was a retelling of it I was very excited.

It was the cover of the book that first drew me to it as I love wolves and the version of the book I read had a wolf on it as well as a girl with long blonde hair and a beautiful blue dress.

Thyra Winther was only five years old when her parents died. She was an emotional girl who was reduced to tears at the slightest thing, unfortunately this time her wails caused an avalanche which killed her parents. Thyra was saved by a wind which blew her out of harms way, a wind conjured by Mael Voss.

Mael Voss only saved her for his own selfish reasons though, because he needed her to do something for him.

Later he taught her magic and brought her to live in his palace as the latest in a long line of snow queens.

“If I leave an area in darkness, they come – the girls who reigned as Snow Queen before me. ‘I must find it.’ Their hollow words twist about me like a shroud. ‘The last piece. I must place it. Give it to me.’ “

The former queens are cursed to live forever in agony because they failed to piece together a shattered looking glass.

“It is simple enough to connect my fate to the stories I heard as a child, told in hushed tones near a brightly burning fire. How long ago, Voss stole a girl from one of the surrounding towns and turned her into something the villagers could comprehend, and fear. The embodiment of brutal winters, of ice and death – the snow queen. “

Voss gave the queen the power to control the weather and prevent herself getting frostbite. She also had the ability to send animals and people into a stupor. However, she had the same limitations as Thyra, she was confined to the Northern realms and if she didn’t help him fix the mirror before her 18th birthday then she would be doomed to be a wraith.

Thyra was 17 years old and had only five months before she would become a wraith like the others.

“They failed, all those who came before me. But I will conquer Voss’ task. I am no ordinary girl – nothing like the wraiths, although they were once a bit like me. I am brighter than the borealis, sharper than an ice crystal, stronger than the northern winds. I will reassemble the mirror and reign as Snow Queen forever.”

In a bid to solve the puzzle of the mirror a bit quicker she looks to a boy she met when she was 11. Kai Thorsen has an analytical mind just like Thyra and she feels like she needs his help if she is to stop herself becoming a wraith.

In her attempts to lure Kai to her she abducts a wolf cub named Luki and end up looking after him.

Kai is desperate to get away from his dreary life and marriage to a girl named Gerda who he has little desire to be with. He follows Thyra without question but he doesn’t reckon Gerda searching the land to find him.

Together Thyra and Kai realise there are 3 missing pieces to the mirror and together they set out to search for them.

I read this book in one day and I cannot wait to read the sequel.

Our Final Rating...

Tue, 25th April 2017