Melt Your Heart With This Frozen Fantasy, The Winter King By C.L. Wilson
Like many other poor souls, I’ve learned the hard way that taking a book recommendation from TikTok is gambling with your life. Nothing taught me this more than Scream For Us—a novella about a woman who falls for a group of masked serial killers after only knowing them for one night. I’m never getting that $7 back. Needless to say, BookTok and I have a complicated relationship. So when a heartfelt review for The Winter King popped up on my feed one night, I was skeptical and wary, but my curiosity won the battle. I mean, a romance version of Frozen?! I needed to find out more. And spoiler alert, it was one of the best TikTok suggestions I’ve ever gotten.
Get to the Good Stuff
I feel like romance readers have a running list of tropes they love and spend every free moment hunting down the books that use them. And y’all, this ticked off so many of my boxes; arranged marriage, enemies to lovers, mates, forced proximity, one gets sick and the other has to nurse them back to health. It’s all there and it was a DELIGHT. I had so much fun reading this and the author stretches it out in the best way. It made the payoff at the end that much sweeter and I was LIVING for it.
Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?
The original TikTok review compared this book to Frozen if Elsa were a guy and I’m happy to report that comparison is totally accurate. The way this world is broken up into different seasons as the regions was pretty cool and I liked that a lot of the character’s powers seemed tied to that as well. There’s some setup at the end for the other two Summerlea Princesses to get their own books and I’m super curious to see how this idea is expanded upon in the future. I want to see more cool weather powers! We love a good set of interconnected standalone romances.
Say What Now?
The only thing that kind of got on my nerves was trying to figure out how Khamsin’s weather gift worked. There were times when she got struck by lightening and it healed her, but then she almost dies at one point in the book and no one suggests her epic Thor-like healing ability to save her. Maybe I missed something, or maybe Khamsin was too weak to control her abilities when she was hurt, I have no clue. But I got a bit confused trying to figure it all out.
Plus, I think this book stretches things out a little *too* much? This could be all the insta-love romances talking, but the middle of this dragged a bit for me. Towards the end I already knew where the story was heading and I started getting impatient waiting for it to happen.
Also, just a heads up. Some of this book deals with some sensitive subject matter, so be sure to do your research on trigger warnings before you pick it up!
The Final Word
Don’t let the absolutely hideous cover fool you, this book was SO FUN. It felt like C.L. Wilson took a classic fairytale and spun it into a romance book and I’m giving it two thumbs way up.
