Frozen Tides: A Falling Kingdoms Novel

The king's mother was a witch! She was the one to tell him the legend of the Kindred and instill in him the sense that not only would he achieve greatness but also find the sorceress and have the Kindred in his power. Thanks a lot for that! Don't you just love it when you hate a character after he's said half a dozen words? Kurtis is a full-on psychopath and he is also manipulative. No wonder Magnus hates him, I do too. He should not be in charge of the Limerian castle! Magnus almost has him killed for disrespecting him and I love how it instills such fear in him! Good job, Magnus! Still the man has the audacity to blatantly lie to Cleo and say Magnus was the bully not him! When Cleo realizes she has truly started to have feelings for Magnus she doubts her perception of him, the way she can read him. Especially after the thing with Kurtis... Can she not see that Magnus easily gave her what she wanted, Nerissa at her side in Limeros, because he likes her and is good, like she's always thought? I think Lucia is a tad better in this book, the ending of the last book seems to have made her less childish. She's not a whinny, annoying. But her answer to things is now murder, plus Kyan (the fire God) is teaching her to compel people into doing what she wants so that's not good. I still do not like Amara, but I found a whole bunch of characters that I hate more than her and that's the entirety of the male Kreashian population, starting with her hateful father who tried, and failed thanks to Amara's mother, to drown his own daughter. Which, listen to this, he can legally do because it's on the freaking law! Men there are the epitome of the world and women are nothing. So as a woman reading this I want to rip the entire Kreashian empire apart and burn the pieces all to hell. Amara and Gaius are two snakes and I love to see their verbal, polite but bordering in violent, battles! It's truly amazing and it makes me appreciate both characters. Cleo is extremely upset when she bumps into Magnus and he's worried about her enough that he follows her. But he only hears the tail end of the conversation, about Cleo hating him for all he's done, and not her jumbled mess of feelings for him! Halfway through the book my feelings for Lucia changed, yet again, but it was a temporary situation. She irked me and all I wanted was for her to stay as far away from Magnus as possible! She compels him, she kisses him, she insults Cleo...! I'm so glad Cleo can see through all the b******* Lucia is saying that I could kiss her! Still Lucia sends her flying and restarts compelling Magnus, who is so strong, resisting her as much as he can, but it hurts so much and Cleo tries to help but can't and Lucia doesn't care how much she's hurting him and he ends up giving in... But the wheel they were looking for has no magic. Still they hurt Magnus, Cleo and Nic some more. Magnus and Cleo seem to share a small moment, true concern passing from one to the other, especially after Kyan tried to burn Magnus alive and Lucia stopped him... Jonas finds Magnus, who is dealing with stupid Kurtis who keeps pushing the limits, and threatens him. But Magnus, and here is the part where I feel like punching him because Cleo offered the exact same thing to Magnus already!, proposes an alliance with him, since they both hate the king and so they should be allies not enemies. Still, Jonas agrees and lets go of Magnus, only to be put in chains and dragged into the throne room, where Lysandra and Olivia are. But this was mostly a play on Magnus's part to be on "even ground" with Jonas, because the moment Cleo admits that she was helping the rebels, Magnus sends the other girls away as well as the guards and proposes an alliance between the 3 of them so that when king Gaius is dead and Magnus is crowned king, Paelsia can go to Jonas and Auranos returned to Cleo. It is a gamble on all parts but they are all in! Gaius is bold when he says that the Kraeshian emperor should not attack Mytica and should instead share his empire with him, equally, because he has all 4 Kindred (lie!) and he also has his daughter, who is powerful enough to freeze the sea and burn people to ash and all that! That unleashing the power of even one crystal would make him a God! Hell, I know the truth and his speech make me weary of what could happen! Even the conqueror of a thousand kingdoms is a tad shaken! Good for you, Gaius! Lucia finds her family and guess who it is? Laela Basilius, daughter of the now dead chieftain of Paelsia. She runs away from the woman and lets Kyan go alone in search of a witch while she peruses the market. But then she has her purse stolen and Jonas gets it back to her. Since she hates her father he tries to recruit her too but she doesn't care. And then Kyan gets there and hears her question about the Kindred a surrounds Jonas, Lys, Nic and Olivia in fire. Olivia who happens to be a Watcher and flies away from the scene when she sees Kyan's rage inflame. And in his rage he ends up killing Lysandra, who takes Jonas out of the way. Just as the stupid rebel leader realizes that he loves her and doesn't want Cleo anymore. That's what you get, Jonas, for forgetting about Lys as soon as Cleo enters your field of vision. Lucia still has a bit of kindness in her heart as she could have let Jonas die with the burning corpse of the girl he loved but she told Nic to pull him away. She hates how out of control Kyan gets. Felix keeps running into people who are planning a revolution! Like Mikah, Amara's guard. He's a good person, he regrets the night things went wrong with Jonas as much as Jonas does. And he doesn't particularly like being a killer... Besides, he wants Magnus to join in on the fight! Everyone seems to want Prince Magnus Damora on their team and that's absolutely adorable! The emperor agrees to the king's terms with a few changes and they sign a document. But, since the empire the throne is passed by the bloodline, Amara and Gaius are married. Then to celebrate her father and brothers drink some wine that she poisoned and die quickly. Someone has to take the blame for this so, because Amara was falling for Felix and vice versa, she has him arrested and due for an execution... Felix is horribly tortured by a guard but Jonas saves him. Their reunion is the most precious thing! I love their relationship, it's amazing! But the king and Amara were already making their way back to Mytica so Jonas sends Olivia, who came back and is now being forced to save all of Jonas's friends (and the whole population of Mytica) so she can continue to protect him, back to Magnus to warn him of the danger to come. Lucia seems more mature now and, despite allowing Kyan to keep on killing people, she hates it, is starting to be consumed at night by it, and even chastises him for it. Even she has a limit. And her magic seems to be fading, she has trouble sleeping and has been sick every morning for days. Lucia is pregnant. Magnus starts overthinking after finding out that the king has aligned himself with Amara and they are going to take over Mytica. So he comes to the conclusion that Cleo is working against him with the rebels and that the news he received was a lie. And he even thinks that Cleo is working with that hateful b**** Amara! Like hell to the no! When he gets back to the palace, a little drunk, he discovers that Cleo is giving a speech and thinks she'll overthrow him then. She reveals the truth about her marriage but also says that Magnus is good and kind and would never sell his kingdom for power, that the people should spread the word of the invasion and reject king Gaius by supporting Magnus as king! But just at that moment Kreashian guards invade the palace. Magnus runs to Cleo but she's taken, to the king, thanks to Kurtis, who Magnus finds and cuts off his hand, because he slapped Cleo, after getting the information he needed. He almost kills the idiot but is interrupted. Magnus knows that he needs to take control of the situation before it becomes near impossible but his only concern is Cleo and so he runs after her. Amara has her head so far up her *** that she truly believes that Cleo would align with her even if it's against the king! Cleo hits her over the head with a bottle and escapes, as Magnus tries is best to get to her in the middle of a snowstorm. The moment they find each other and reveal their true feelings...! Heavens above the feels! It's perfect! I finally like Lucia! She and Kyan found an ancient passage to the Sanctuary inside the Forbidden Mountains and she could have brought Timotheus down and killed him but once she heard that Kyan's plan was destroy everything and remake it she said no. He took his God-like form and tried to kill her. But thanks to the ring Cleo gave her she stopped him and maybe trapped him? And even entered the Sanctuary, in part due to her baby too, ready to right all the wrong she did these last few weeks! I'm so very proud of the progress she made! When Cleo and Magnus exit the cabin the king is outside. He takes the two of them and a couple guards to the edge of a cliff where he forces Magnus to kill Cleo. He says yes, and she doubts everything, but then he strikes his father of course. They fight but Magnus loses and the king is about to kill him when Cleo dangles the earth Kindred over the cliff. It's a no win situation for her and her husband so she ends up letting the orb fall to the frozen lake, knowing it will create an earthquake. Cleo manages to hold on but the king falls. Still he's not dead and he calls her by her mother's name, which apparently was the only woman he truly loved and which his mother had ordered him to kill and ended up being her who killed Cleo's mom. Still, since the king is nearly dead or at least is most certainly in a coma now, Magnus is the ruler and the Limerian guards will follow him and only him, to hell with Amara! For the sake of all that is holy in this world! Nic, keep your hatred for Magnus in a freaking locked box! He's good! He's human and he made several mistakes, but he did a lot of good too! Did you have to make Theon's brother, a rebel in Kreashia named Taran that beat Felix when he met him, a member of the let's-murder-prince-Magnus-Damora club? To hell with you, man! I love you and you keep on doing things like this! And, question, how in the ever-loving hell is Ashur Cortas alive? His grandmother said something about him going to her apothecary and yeah I thought about the potion that Amara's mother gave her and that killed her, but who died and brought him to life? It couldn't have been his father and brothers, he's in Kreashia already. And it doesn't sound right to have been Alexius, he was a Watcher. The guards? He's stealthy as hell, is all I have to say about Ashur. It's been a somewhat long time since he died! This book was fantastic! This series gets better and better, more intriguing and interesting with each installment! I can't believe I've waited this long to continue this!!! I'm in love with this! I was before too, but now I just desperately want and need to know the ending of this story!

Okay, so here is the thing: this book gave me all the 5-star vibes a normal 5- star book also gives me, but then again I had a lot of problems with the characters this time around. So how should we handle this? Give it 4 stars? But that wouldn't do the plot justice in my opinion, so I guess I will go with a 4,5 stars for this one. (which is a 5 on Goodreads) But as I said, I did have some issues this time around. It is the fourth book in the series, and by now I know the characters very well. This can be a good thing, because I am used to them and I can feel what they are feeling, because I experience their struggle and pain as well. But this also makes everything so predictable. I knew what a person would (or wouldn't) do way before they actually did it, and that annoyed me. There was only that one plottwist at the end that made me gasp, but everything else? Nope. I already saw it comming, which was so unfortunate because the unpredictability was one thing I loved about these books. Another thing that annoyed the hell out of me was the back and forth between Cleo and Magnus. Lots of people say that their "slow burning romance" is great, but I jut grew veery of it once and for all. This kind of plotline shouldn't've been dragged over four books. Luckily things look like they start to sort thenselves out now. Finally. Now all this mighy look like I didn't enjoy the book, but that was completely not the case. I loved it, like all the books in this series before. The plotline was phenomenal, and even though you see what the characters are doing, sometimes you can't even process how fast people are dying here (and coming back to life apparently?? HOW???), which is a good thing in my opinion. Rhodes always ends her books with a cliffhanger, which makes the whole experience even better. I definitely look forward to the next book and I am interested to see what the author has install for us. 4,5 ★