Cold Magic ~ A Review

Cold Magic by Kate Elliott was one of those reads where you can loose yourself in the story easily. I like to read before bedtime, and found that I could open the book back up and be quite lost in it's richly researched alternate history, great characters and fantasy/Steampunk elements in this book.

It's quite a concoction.Elliott herself calls it a "mash-up" of "Afro-Celtic post-Roman icepunk Regency novel with airships...". Elliot somehow makes this Steampunk, fantasy, sci-fi so realistic you can taste the coal smoke on the air, feel the sting of cold on your nose and fingertips. When I read where the girls were in massive factories, she didn't nice it up at all, there were beleaguered workers that were treated more like slaves. As you read through this alternate history world, you come across pieces of information which links what you know as history of our world and the world within this book and it is done with such exacting measure a laser could not have done better.

The adventure is continuous once our main character, Cat Barahal is forced into marriage to a powerful cold mage--who is arrogant to the extreme. Cat, and her cousin, Bee, seem to be typical teenagers who are experts at sneaking through windows when they should be in bed. But the adventure starts when Cat is taken from the home of her aunt and uncle, and later feels betrayed, after the mages discover that they have the wrong daughter and decide the only way to end a magical marriage is to kill her.

I don't come across  a book so well written that I look forward to reading it every night--and this was a large book. When I do enjoy a book this much, I call it my "Top Shelf".

If you love alternate history, Steampunk, fantasy, sci-fi, adventure with some (light) romance involving young adults, this is an excellent book to get your hands on. I'm looking forward to Elliott's second novel Cold Fire.