Winter Queen by Amber Argyle

Mortally wounded during a raid, seventeen-year-old Ilyenna is healed by winter fairies who present her with a seductive offer: become one of them and share their power over winter. But that power comes with a price. If she accepts, she will become a force of nature, lose her humanity, and abandon her family.

Unwilling to pay such a high price, Ilyenna is enslaved by one of the invaders, Darrien. While in captivity, she learns the attack wasn’t just a simple raid but part of a larger plot to overthrow her entire nation.

With the enemy stealing over the mountains and Darrien coming to take her to his bed, Ilyenna must decide whether to resurrect the power the fairies left behind. Doing so will allow her to defeat Darrien and the other invaders, but if she embraces winter, she will lose herself to that destroying power—forever.

The synopsis and cover totally drew me to this book. After reading the Amazon “sample” I was hooked and wanted to keep reading. It’s one of those books that is hard to put down, you want to keep reading to see what will happen next and how everything will work out. I liked our heroine Ilyenna, she puts others needs above her own. She doesn’t back down and tries to do the right thing. She has it pretty rough throughout the book and I admired how she was able to stay strong. I also liked our hero Rone. He is loyal, brave and kind. I like that he continued to put Ilyenna first, even above his own needs. I liked their relationship, it did save the book for me. I thought they had good chemistry and I was rooting for them to be together. I had read some reviews that mentioned the violence, but I guess I still wasn’t expecting so much or so detailed. It seems like it was non-stop from start to finish. It seemed like so much time was spent on the violence that the rest of the story suffered. The politics and romance were overshadowed by beatings, wars and pain. I ended up skipping a couple fight scenes at the end because I was just burned out. Too much violence for my taste. I also thought the end wrapped up rather quickly. Especially in regards to Ilyenna and Rone’s relationship, it was rather sudden. The fairy elements were okay, but I’m still on the fence about how everything ended up in that regard. Overall, an interesting read. While I liked the overall story the violence was a big turn off for me. Content: There is sex before marriage and a pregnancy results. Aside from kissing, everything fades to black and there is no details. There are a couple attempts at Ilyenna’s virtue, but nothing goes too far. There is a lot of war, beatings and other violence.