Review: Daughter of Winter (Fairy Queens #3)
by Amber Argyle

When I stumbled upon Amber Argyle’s Winter Queen, I couldn’t read it fast enough, and then I thought, How have I not heard of this author before?! Within a few pages of the story, I was lost in the world that Ms. Argyle created (completely immersed, resulting in a massive book hangover). Read on for my review of Daughter of Winter!

 

Daughter of Winter by Amber Argyle

Series: Fairy Queens #3
Category: Young Adult, Fantasy
Publication: April 21st, 2016
Purchase: Amazon

Bargains. Only the truly desperate make them. Only the truly desperate need them. And always, the desperate pay.

The silence and never-ending dark of winter are all Elice has ever known, for she is the daughter of the Winter Queen. Isolated in a northern queendom with only the seals for company, she dreams of color and music and life. So when a whaling ship crashes just offshore, she doesn’t hesitate to rescue the lone survivor, Adar, who quickly becomes her friend. She must keep him hidden from her mother at all costs, for if the Winter Queen discovers him trespassing, she’ll kill him.

When her mother reveals just how dark her soul has become, Elice realizes she is as much a prisoner as Adar. To ever know true freedom—to ever become the woman she was meant to be—she must flee with him. But in their flight, she begins to see hints of something more nefarious. The darkness that has taken hold of her mother is spreading, staining the world with its influence.

Unbeknownst to Elice, a bargain was made long ago. A bargain she was born to fulfill.

 

Review:

[book rating=5/5]

“Perhaps the queen shall kill me. I cannot know.
But I can at least be as brave as the girl who owed me nothing and yet risked everything.”

The third book in her Fairy Queens series, Daughter of Winter is a vivid, sweeping novel and, as happened with Winter Queen, I was once again I was transported, this time to a frigid, beautiful land of ice, snow, and despondency, as opposed to the lush greens and yellows of Winter Queen (I know, it sounds contradictory—yellow and green in a book called Winter Queen?—but if you’ve read it, you will understand.).

This story focuses on Elice, the daughter of Illyena, the Winter Queen. I fell in love with Illyena’s feisty spirit in her namesake book and my heart broke a bit at the end, when she was faced with the harsh choice that made her the queen of my least favorite season. In Daughter of Winter, Illyena has become hardened and hardly a trace remains of the warm, caring healer she was in the first novel. Instead, her daughter Elice has inherited these qualities. Elice is artistic, reverent, empathetic, and intelligent. She is also a healer, as her mother was. The parallels between mother and daughter are haunting. When Illyena’s fairies attack a whaling ship, Elice attempts to rescue those on board and manages to save Adar, an incorrigible, handsome man who has secrets of his own.

I hate winter. I hate the cold, I hate the feel of ice, I hate snow. But Ms. Argyle creates a world of such beauty in this story that I couldn’t help but be entranced (and a little cold). The writing is just . . . amazing. I’m sorry that I can’t think of a better word to more perfectly capture that talent with which she writes, so amazing will have to do. I tend to get bored in books that have a ton of description, but I don’t think I skipped one sentence in this story, of description, action, or otherwise. And speaking of action, the pace of the book was non-stop. Wars are raging, oceans are churning, the queen is hunting her own daughter, and the earth is being brutalized by the imbalance of magic. It truly was one event after another.

And the characters! The characters are heartbreakingly real. They are sympathetic, evil, conflicted, and determined. Otec, Elice’s grandfather, is one of my favorites and I was happy to see him again in Daughter of Winter. Adar is a worthy hero, though I am scared of what he will reveal in Winter’s Heir, the next novel in the Fairy Queens series. Elice is a perfect heroine, one for whom you can cheer and to whom you can relate because, even though your mother might not be a magical, evil queen, you’ve probably felt stifled or rebuffed by your parents here and there throughout your life. She is so strong and good at her core. She is constantly faced with difficult choices and always makes the right decisions.

I could ramble on and on about this book but in the end, the only thing you need to know is that you have to read this book! If you haven’t read its predecessors, start with those, and then devour this. Okay? Okay, good.

5/5 stars. Amazing.

 

“Elice, where are you going?” Adar called.

“I have to go see.” Had to see the land she’d always dreamed of, the land of life and color. She finally reached the top of the hill, a warm breeze tugging her loose hair over her face. She impatiently gathered it over one shoulder and looked out over the sweeping landscape, covered with small lakes and so much color it hurt her eyes. Her heart swelled with hope. This was the life before her—full of possibilities and discoveries. And best of all, she was no longer alone.