Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Review: Midnight Frost and Spartan Frost by Jennifer Estep

Midnight Frost
(Mythos Academy #5)
Jennifer Estep
Release: July 30, 2013
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Here we go again …

Just when it seems life at Mythos Academy can’t get any more dangerous, the Reapers of Chaos manage to prove me wrong. It was just a typical night at the Library of Antiquities — until a Reaper tried to poison me. The good news is I’m still alive and kicking. The bad news is the Reaper poisoned someone else instead.

As Nike’s Champion, everyone expects me to lead the charge against the Reapers, even though I’m still hurting over what happened with Spartan warrior Logan Quinn. I’ve got to get my hands on the antidote fast — otherwise, an innocent person will die. But the only known cure is hidden in some creepy ruins — and the Reapers are sure to be waiting for me there …

Review:

Midnight Frost is the fifth book in the Mythos Academy young adult series. This is a terrific addition to this fun series and I appreciate how recent installments have been slightly darker and more serious with plots that break away from the pattern of the first three books. Estep is really in tune with her characters now and while some still remain slightly flatter than others, the ones that count are fully realized and easy to relate to.

Our heroine, Gwen Frost, is one of these relatable characters. One of my complaints about Gwen from the first two books - the plot device that she overlooks the obvious in order to keep the story moving along - is no longer an issue. Gwen is a completely likable YA heroine that I can relate to and rally behind. Sometimes in a YA book its not believable that the heroine would actually be a heroine, but the Mythos reader can understand why Nike would choose Gwen to be her Champion. Plus, her psychometry power gets cooler with every book in the series.

Logan freaking Quinn, as Gwen likes to call him, was absent from most of this story, so I was thankful that he got his own novella, which I read just prior to starting this book (see more on the novella below). Logan and Gwen together are YA genre gold and like Gwen, he is an extremely affable character. You hurt right along with him as he tries to heal from the emotional scars stabbing your girlfriend in the chest while possessed must leave.

This book is different from previous installments in that here the Mythos gang is on a specific mission for most of the book, and they know this mission will bring them to the Reapers. This is as opposed to earlier books where the gang was going about their life and Reapers intervened. The 'mission' aspect is a nice change of pace and I enjoyed everything that came with it - a new setting, some new characters, and gryphons (especially the gryphons)!

I love this series and where its going. Mythos Academy is the perfect balance between dark and funny and the mythology is always deeply interesting. I highly recommend the series as a whole, and Midnight Frost especially!


Recommended for fans of: mythology, gryphons, young adult adventures, snarky swords, and goddesses.

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


    
  4 / 5 stars

Notes on the novella: Sometimes I don't bother with novellas in the series I read, but Spartan Frost focuses on Logan following the events at the end of Crimson Frost when he was possessed by Loki and almost killed Gwen. I felt like this would be an important novella and I was right. Not only do we get a bit of a Logan fix, which I'm glad for since he is not in a huge chunk of Midnight Frost, but we get inside his head. We also get to better understand the dynamic between Logan and his father and Logan and his father's team. I recommend reading Spartan Frost prior to Midnight Frost. Its a very quick novella that can be read in one sitting.

Spartan Frost (Mythos Academy, #4.5)

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

    

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