Review--Frost Like Night by Sara Raasch

Angra is alive, his Decay is spreading—and no one is safe.

Meira will do anything to save her world. With Angra trying to break through her mental defenses, she desperately needs to learn to control her own magic—so when the leader of a mysterious Order from Paisly offers to teach her, she jumps at the chance. But the true solution to stopping the Decay lies in a labyrinth deep beneath the Season Kingdoms. To defeat Angra, Meira will have to enter the labyrinth, destroy the very magic she’s learning to control—and make the biggest sacrifice of all.

Mather will do anything to save his queen. He needs to rally the Children of the Thaw, find Meira—and finally tell her how he really feels. But with a plan of attack that leaves no kingdom unscathed and a major betrayal within their ranks, winning the war—and protecting Meira—slips farther and farther out of reach.

Ceridwen will do anything to save her people. Angra had her brother killed, stole her kingdom, and made her a prisoner. But when she’s freed by an unexpected ally who reveals a shocking truth behind Summer’s slave trade, Ceridwen must take action to save her true love and her kingdom, even if it costs her what little she has left.

As Angra unleashes the Decay on the world, Meira, Mather, and Ceridwen must bring the kingdoms of Primoria together…or lose everything.

Frost Like Night is Sara Raasch’s exciting conclusion to the Snow Like Ashes trilogy! While I regret reading these last two books so far from the first one, I will say that I did enjoy this ending! It was the right way to end things and while there are a few loose ends I wish could’ve been tied up better, I am happy with where things are.

Meira escapes Angra’s clutches just in the nick of time thanks to the help of Rares, who’s not just a librarian as she initially thought. He’s the king of Paisly and knows about magic and the powers that come from being your own conduit. It’s with his help and training that Meira will learn control over her internal powers and what she will need to do in order to defeat Angra once and for all.

We once again get Mather’s point of view, and we watch as he and Phil break away from the Thaw in order to help Meira out more. There’s also a new point of view added to the mix, Ceridwen, the sister of the former king of Summer. She plans to help Meira with her quest and put an end to all magic. She longs to defeat the queen that stole Jesse from her and basically wreaked havoc over his kingdom. Everyone is joining together to stop Angra and his mad quest.

Though, Meira knows that the only way to destroy all magic and therefore, Angra, is for a conduit of magic to be freely given to the chasm. And since Meira is her own conduit, she will have to make the ultimate sacrifice to save the world.

This book was both exciting and a little slow. There’s a lot of planning going on. Planning on all sides it seems. Angra is doing what he can to stop Meira while all her friends are trying to devise the best course of action to taking him out. That Theron has been magically manipulated to be on Angra’s side doesn’t help their cause. Meira and her crew are sorely outnumbered since Angra’s magic can basically turn anyone to his side. It’s those little moments that helped to make this book not entirely too slow. While a lot of planning was happening, there were little moments that happened in between that made things rather enjoyable!

I feel like by the end of the second book, we all know who Meira is going to end up with. Again, by not remembering the first book well, I can’t remember whose “team” I was on. But for some reason, I always thought it would be Mather. Mather or no one really for Theron’s actions in the last book basically made me think he was out of the running. And it’s truly those friends first relationships that get me all sappy inside! I loved that Mather and Meira took time to realize the depth of their feelings for one another. Sure they loved each other as friends for so long, but having that love become something more was sweet.

Just as I think Sara has stopped twisting our hearts, she surprises me several times throughout the end that she wasn’t even close to finishing! There were many losses in this book and it ate me up inside. And it’s in the aftermath of those losses that had me more upset than from the losses themselves. It’s a weird scenario, yes I was sadden by the deaths, but seeing the reactions of the loved ones left behind made me more weepy. And the fact that we don’t really get to know how these other loved ones are doing in the very end had me even sadder. Yes, we see these characters walking about, but how are they doing after everything? It seems we will never know.

The losses aside, I will say that the ending was pretty epic! I can’t really say more than that without getting too carried away. While the majority of me is completely satisfied with the ending there will always be a part of me that wants to know more about everyone besides the main characters. But it never seems to work out that way, so I basically write it off in my head that within time, everyone was happy! Lol. This was a fun trilogy with a unique world and I quite enjoyed the journey.


Overall Rating 4/5 stars