Here I am. I am indeed well and alive. Thanks, Daley Downing, for reaching out and checking up on me. I’m sorry I haven’t been around for anyone that missed me. I needed a break. I didn’t know I needed a break nor did I intend on taking one. It just sort of happened.

A couple things led to that.

For one, I’ve been busy with a new business venture that I’m super excited about. I’ll give you details on that later.

I realized I had worn myself out. I was losing track of why I started this book in the first place. Instead of writing and reading for the sake of my love of books, I’d become a bit too consumed with deadlines, obtaining ARCs, cranking out reviews, and reading for others more than for myself. I was losing sight of why I enjoyed reading and blogging in the first place.Obviously, those things can be important but they had overtaken my life to a point where I wasn’t enjoying myself, and I’m not enjoying reading than what is the point?

Basically, I felt like I was losing my personality and becoming a review robot.

And I’d rather write less and be awesome.

SO! I will keep blogging and reviewing but expect some changes! A few things I’d like to do differently are more concise reviews. I was reading Kirkus Reviews lately, you know the ones that are always on the Praise section on the back of your book, and I realized that they are incredibly and wonderfully short! They don’t dance around their opinion. They use precise language to make their point and are done with it. I’d like my reviews to be more like that so I don’t dread writing them.

Second, I was manic about making sure I wrote Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at the very least sometimes more. While I think consistency is important, I have a one-year-old that needs my time and attention. So from now on, expect a post on Monday. If I write more than that, great. If I don’t, then oh well. That’s the consistency I can offer at this point in my life.

Hopefully though, if I’m writing shorter reviews for the most part, it won’t be such a chore to write a post multiple times a week.

I hope you understand and that this won’t dissuade you from keeping up with me! But if it does, I totally understand…sort of. Kind of. Okay not really because I’m awesome, darn it!

With further ado, here is my review of the upcoming book Frostblood, which is to be released in January 2017!

Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Publication Date: January 17th, 2017

Series: Frostblood Sage, #1

Genre: Fantasy, YA

Rating: 4/5

Ruby is a Fireblood, born in a kingdom ruled by the powerful Frost King, who has decreed an end to her kind. After she is imprisoned and her mother killed by his soldiers, she heartily agrees to an opportunity to kill the king, even if it means learning to take control of her unpredictable and dangerous powers after years of suppressing them.

Frostblood reads like an early Sarah J. Maas novel though with more grit and less fluff. The world building was superb, complete, and made a wonderful backdrop for our characters. It was easy to imagine the Frost King’s palace, icicles and all, as though you were actually there.

I though that Ruby and Arcann where fairly well-developed, though they could’ve been pushed a bit further and it may have been more interesting for their romance to be drawn out. However, I still enjoyed them as characters. Both are sassy and strong while still being flawed and having believable likability.  What I really would’ve liked to see though was more development of the secondary characters. I was quite sad that Rasmus, the Frost King, was so one-dimensional as I personally found him to be incredibly interesting and would’ve enjoyed learning more about it. The priests as well were a bit lackluster.

Overall though, a great first novel which gives readers a good glimpse at Elly Blake’s potential.