Nov 28, 2016

Early Review--Winter Halo by Keri Arthur

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Souls of Fire novels comes the second in the futuristic fantasy series that will make you want to keep the lights on...

When the bombs that stopped the species war tore holes in the veil between worlds, they allowed entry to the Others. Now, a hundred years later, humans and shifters alike live in artificially lit cities designed to keep the darkness at bay....


The humanoid supersoldiers known as the déchet were almost eradicated by the war. Ever since, Tiger has tried to live her life in peace in hiding. But in the wake of her discovery that Central City’s children are being kidnapped and experimented on, Tiger’s conscience won’t let her look the other way.

The key to saving them lies within the walls of a pharmaceutical company called Winter Halo. But as she learns more about the facility, Tiger’s mission is derailed by a complication: Winter Halo’s female security guards are being systematically attacked by an unknown force.

Now Tiger must summon all her gifts to stop those responsible for both atrocities—no matter the cost to herself...


I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a voluntary and honest review. I was in no way compensated for this review.

Keri Arthur continues her new sci-fi series with Winter Halo as journey with Tiger once again as she fights to rescue the missing children who have been kidnapped and used to experiment on. I found myself once again struggling to remember what happened in the previous book and even worse, struggling to understand what was happening in this book. I am fearing that Keri’s new sci-fi series just might not be quite the read for me.
This world is very different from my norm. Even in the other futuristic books I’ve read, this world is nothing compared to those. Which can be a good thing, but I struggled to really understand what all has happened in this new world. There were wars between just about everyone. As a dechet, Tiger has it rough because she is seen as an enemy to man and paranormal alike, just because she was used as a weapon of war. Tiger is very much her own person though and no one controls her any longer.
The enemy…which I am still not 100% clear on who that is still, still has half of the missing children in its clutches. Meaning Tiger still has to work with Jonas who has made it clear he has no love for dechets. Yet, still there is a kind of spark between these two. One that they both try to ignore, but it seems even that trying is coming to an end. The ball clearly remains with Tiger and what she will do with it is anyone’s guess.
I truly think it’s the world-building that has me struggling to understand this new series. It’s a bit too much for my addled mind I guess. I am not much of a sci-fi reader, and some of the events that continue to happen here clearly belong to that realm. Don’t get me wrong, we still see bits of magic and paranormal kind of lore going on and I enjoy those aspects, it’s just that the rest of the world in this book really takes a lot out of me. I struggle to concentrate and comprehend and it’s becoming too much for me to handle.
I did still enjoy the characters though! Truly they are what held me together. I love Tiger’s fierceness and her devotion to saving these children. Jonas, though he may be a bit of a hardass at times, is also enjoyable because he too is passionate about rescuing the children. And as I said, Tiger and Jonas’ interactions together are reaching new levels! Sure there’s still bantering and teasing between them, but there’s very little coldness between them anymore. And with literal talks about them trying to see if something could happen between them, well, it kept me reading is all!
It’s hard for me to talk much about the pacing, as again, I mention my struggles with this world there were times I felt like I was kind of just distantly reading about things and would be sucked back into the book at various intervals when there wasn’t a lot of overthinking done on my part. Never once did I consider DNFing though. I am too stubborn for that when it involves a favorite author of mine, though I am hesitant to say if I will be continuing this series. It’s hard because I do love Keri’s work, but it’s just something about this series that I am having a hard time connecting with. And as I said, it’s more on the world-building level and it being just a bit too complicated for me to fully comprehend in certain areas. Unfortunately those areas make an overall understanding even harder to come by.
But still, this read was still pretty enjoyable for me when I did have an idea of what was going on. I loved the characters! They are truly what kept me going in my times of struggle. Tiger’s ghostly children friends, Cat and Bear are remarkable! I love that these ghostly children as so comical and fierce! They are really well developed characters too considering that they are ghosts! While I am curious to see what an endpoint for this series might look like, I am not 100% certain I will be going that far.

Overall Rating 3/5 stars

Winter Halo releases December 6, 2016


2 comments:

  1. I can't wait to read this one! I loved City of Light! Incidentally it was also my first Keri Arthur book, and now she has a new fan.

    ~Mogsy @ BiblioSanctum

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  2. I gave 5 stars to City of Light and loved the whole thing. I completely understand your struggles with this one as I experienced some of that as well-going so far as to put it down and read something else at least a couple of times. Ultimately I gave it 4 stars because I loved the characters and actually liked a lot of the world building. I took a star away for the slowness and how confused I was at times. Great, honest review!

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