Cold Magic - Kate Elliott

Kate Elliott is a great writer to begin with. This new series starting with Cold Magic was better than I'd thought it would be. Now I thought it would be good because of the author, but it surpassed expectations. First of all it is written in first person but has the feel of epic fantasy, which rarely works. First person often defines the character but in this case there is significant world building, that you see in the spic genre side of things. Which means at 600 plus pages you are not going to just fly through it, it is going to be savored. Now when there is great world building sometimes writers get bogged down in the beggining because they see the whole picture and those novels take a bit to get into even if they are worth the journey in the end. With this novel it jumps right into it and reveals slowly as you go along so you get all those nuances. The character Cat (short for Cathrine) is an orphen after her parents died in an accident and she is taken in to be raised by close family. Right in the beggining (I feel free to mention it due to the fact it is on the back cover) she is betrayed by her family and forced to marry a Cold Mage. She is thrown into a volitile political enviroment and is simply trying to survive and protect her cousin. One the way she learns some puzzles of her own history which raise more questions than answers. There is a lot of history and culture in this story that brings it alive as we are drawn to Cat's personal story. It is an excellent story and I am looking forward to buying the next one.