Review: Kingdom Cold

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

From Goodreads:
Attempted murder, that's how sixteen-year-old Princess Charlotte's engagement starts. It seems like the only thing she has in common with Prince Young of Vires is their mutual discontent.

When her kingdom's attacked, Charlotte's parents renegotiate her hand in marriage to a handsome stranger with a sinister plan. With the people Charlotte loves dying around her, and her kingdom's future at stake, the only person she can turn to is the prince she betrayed. But, should she save her kingdom or her heart?

One must fall.

Princess Charlotte of Besmium made it clear to her parents, she doesn't want to get married. Not now, and not in the near future. Even the idea of someone robbing her from her one chance at freedom terrifies her to the brink desperation. She acts out a reckless plan that almost costs herself the entire kingdom.


Told in multiple viewpoints, Kingdom Cold will draw the reader into its world of betrayal and destruction. The book is definitely aimed for younger audiences, leaning more towards middle-grade fantasy than the Young Adult genre. But, (heh, there's always a but) because of the few scenes containing sexual themes and minor violence and gore, this book won't fit entirely into middle-grade genre either.

A thought occurred to me. With a plot so complex and a set of characters that are trying to top each other in the competition for the throne, why stop here? I am not saying, that this was a bad end result. Definitely, not. I am just thinking that the potential in the already existing characters is immense and with a little higher page count and a long stride more towards the YA genre, this book could hop from being a solid three-star to a shining four, or even a five-star one. I'm just saying, the base is already there.

I felt that because of the length of the book, there wasn't enough time for the relationships to develop between the characters. The entire romance happened lightning fast. So many unanswered questions about the relationships between certain characters and the why's behind the end results. 

Then, the thing I never realised that bothered me, because I couldn't pinpoint the reason. The way racial differences are described with the help of food. I know it's easy to say 'skin the colour of caramel' or 'almond-shaped eyes', but in reality, neither one of those is an accurate description of one's looks. An almond-shaped-eye? What does that look like? I have no clue. Most of the time it's used when describing the structure of Asian eyes. But, hello, if you put faces of Chinese and Filipino men and women next to each other, you see that the structure is entirely different. Yes, they're both eyes, both have eyelids, eyeballs, lashes, and the works, but does either of them remind you of an almond? Maybe as much as the shape of the eye on an original Norwegian Viking.

Sometimes, I'm told I should calm down and take in a deep breath when I start ranting about things. Not gonna happen soon, unfortunately.

All in all, I enjoyed reading Kingdom Cold. I feel like the book misses out on a lot, but in the end, it keeps you entertained from the first page until the very last. Being just shy of three hundred pages, the story will fly in front of your eyes and be done in a mere few hours. The plot twists will encourage you to read faster and faster to get to know what happens next.