Goldilox and the Three Weres: Early Review: Crimson Frost by Jennifer Estep

Crimson Frost
(Mythos Academy #4)
Jennifer Estep
Release: December 24, 2012
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For a moment, a face flashed before my eyes—the most hideous face I’d ever seen. No matter how hard I tried to forget what had happened, I saw him everywhere I went. It was Loki—the evil god that I’d helped set free against my will.

I should have known that my first official date with Logan Quinn was destined to end in disaster. If we’d gotten into a swordfight, or been ambushed by Reapers, I’d have been more prepared. But getting arrested mid-sip at the local coffee hangout? I didn’t see that one coming.

I’ve been accused of purposely helping the Reapers free Loki from his prison—and the person leading the charge against me is Linus Quinn, Logan’s dad. The worst part is that pretty much everyone at Mythos Academy thinks I’m guilty. If I’m going to get out of this mess alive, I’ll have to do it myself…

Review:

Crimson Frost is the fourth installment in Estep's Mythos Academy series and continues the series' trend of fun characters and fast paced plots. In this one we see our main character, Gypsy Gwen, charged with being a Reaper and purposely freeing the evil god Loki from his prison. Gwen is a good heroine, although sometimes her brash choices annoy me. Her Gypsy ability of psychometry, which she can use to see an object's or person's history, is a pretty darn cool ability and I always love any scene where we get to see her use it.

Throughout the book the plot bounces back and forth between Gwen dealing with the Protectorate, the team that will preside over her trial, and Gwen up to her old antics trying to solve the mystery of who the real Reapers are. In typical Mythos Academy fashion, Gwen is the only smart person who attends the school and therefore must be the one to unravel the mysteries and stop another Loki plot to start his Chaos War. There were many disheartening scenes where Gwen's classmates treated her awfully because they believed her to be a Reaper and those scenes added a little more to the plot to make readers understand how unforgiving the mythological community would be to anyone involved with Loki.

All of the side characters are great, including popular girl turned Gwen's BFF Daphne and her band geek boyfriend Carson, school slut and mean girl turned friendly acquaintance Morgan, new addition Alexei, heartwarming Grandma Frost, and Logan freaking Quinn. Logan and Gwen's relationship continues developing in this book, hindered slightly by the fact that his dad is the one leading the trial against her and is completely convinced that she is guilty, but things move slightly forward nonetheless.

This is a fun and breezy read and, while some plot points are completely predictable, Crimson Frost has plenty of heart behind it to make it worthwhile.

Recommended for fans of: mythology, Covenant series by Jennifer L. Armentrout, Starcrossed series by Josephine Angelini, fast paced YA reads, and Logan freaking Quinn.

This review is based on an advanced copy of the book, provided by the publisher.