I first fell in love with Jennifer Estep’s writing with her novel Karma Girl. Then I was blown away by Gin in Spider’s Bite. Her newest novel, Touch of Frost, was the perfect blend of those two series and quite possibly the best book she’s written so far.
My name is Gwen Frost, and I go to Mythos Academy — a school of myths, magic and warrior whiz kids, where even the lowliest geek knows how to chop off somebody’s head with a sword and Logan Quinn, the hottest Spartan guy in school, also happens to be the deadliest.
But lately, things have been weird, even for Mythos. First, mean girl Jasmine Ashton was murdered in the Library of Antiquities. Then, someone stole the Bowl of Tears, a magical artifact that can be used to bring about the second Chaos War. You know, death, destruction and lots of other bad, bad things. Freaky stuff like this goes on all the time at Mythos, but I’m determined to find out who killed Jasmine and why – especially since I should have been the one who died…
Gwen was the perfect blend of snarky and cynical but with a sense of humor that had me laughing out loud. Yet Gwen has a soft side that she doesn’t really like to show off. It shined through intermittently, but was most apparent when Gwen decided to solve Jasmine’s murder simply because no one else really seemed to care.
The secondary characters were just as well developed as Gwen. Logan, freaking Quinn, as Gwen sometimes calls him, completely lived up to his heritage as a Spartan. (Have you seen even a picture of the Spartans from the movie 300? Yep, he’s one of them.) An amazing warrior, he was also smart and a bit of a player. There were hints of more depth to him than he actually protrayed and I for one cannot wait to see what is going on in the mind of Logan freaking Quinn.
Daphne was another secondary character that had more to her than there appeared to be. At first she seems to be just another preppy, pink-loving drama queen. She turned out to be anything but, being one of many little unique twists in Touch of Frost.
The plot sucked me in from page one and kept me glued to the pages with it’s perfect blend of murder, mayhem, mythology and that hunky Spartan boy who kept popping up when it was least expected.
Touch of Frost has the humor from Estep’s Big Time series mixed with the dark, gritty kick ass elements from her Elemental Assassin series. That combination, along with the unique character, will definitely leave readers eagerly awaiting thr release of Kiss of Frost.
Other reviews: Red Hot Books, Livin Life Through Books, Small Review, FlamingNet Teen book blog and Read to Read
I rarely read YA unless it has a Fae storyline, but I have to say, I think I’m going to have to make an exception for this one. I absolutely love the Elemental Assassin series. It’s one of my favorites, and I’ve been hearing good things about A Touch of Frost everywhere. I’m also psyched that apparently the rights for the Karma Girl series have reverted to Jennifer and she has put up the ebook versions at $2.99 each. I can’t wait to give those a try.
I keep reading good reviews for this one – but I’d be picking it up anyway! Jennifer Estep’s Elemental Assassins books are among my favorites…if she brings the same depth of character development and plotting to YA, I’ll be one happy reader. :)