I was really disappointed in this book. I enjoy about the first half than everything fell flat. There was no romantic tension. The kiss came out of the blue and the enemies to lovers thing didn’t work.

An interesting premise, and engaging at the beginning, by halfway I felt a little bored. There was quite a bit of repetitiveness and the plot did drag in a few places.

The enemies to lovers trope was done well however, and I did enjoy the dynamic between Sol and Kellan.

** spoiler alert ** I really liked that one! The action was well described, and realistic, reading it felt like watching a movie!

Watching Sol warming up to Kelan's condition and questioning everything she even known was beautiful. She really was the better human, this queen of the mountains.

The romance was beautifully paced too. Except for the wedding, that I still don't even know if it happened for real (I think not, but I'm lost here. Having a digital galley mean I didn't want to go back to check).

Many thanks to BooksGoSocial for the complimentary e-copy of this book through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book was different to my normal reads but it had everything. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would hughly recoment it

I'm really not keen on 'enemies to lovers' books, but this one was better than most I've been offered to read and I enjoyed it. The characters are well thought out, and believable, and while there was a little bit of overtly OTT drama, it fits with the genre, and was an easy, enjoyable read.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher for an honest, unbiased review.

I really struggled to get into this book. The world building was interesting but I was not sucked in like I was hoping I would be. I think the magic system was interesting but the characters just weren't quite for me.

While the concepts behind the plot for this book were interesting, I think a bit more character development would be really helpful.

I think the biggest reason I'm withholding a higher rating is because the romance switched quite fast from enemies to lovers without the requisite relationship development required to make it believable. After love declarations were said, I just had a hard time taking the characters seriously and it made the last quarter of the book a much slower read.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Firefrost was an intense enemies-to-lovers fantasy novel set in the back drop of an age-old war with two characters who have incredible chemistry and how they must come together, put aside their prejudices in order to survive a treacherous mountain pass in the middle of winter.

If you are a fan of web comics and you have the Webtoon app, and you ultimately LOVED this book, then I can't help but suggest you read SubZero to quell your book hangover from reading Firefrost!

Firefrost is a character driven story in which two enemies, Sol and Kelan, are forced together in order to survive a treacherous journey through a wintery mountain pass. In this book, secrets will be revealed that will force these two to grow and change their outlooks not only about the war, but also about themselves.

Sol is a huntress/mage where Kelan is a Flameskin, and at first they absolutely hate each other due to the brutal war that has been going on between the humans and the Flameskins. Then the accident happens and they are forced together to survive. During that time, their relationship grows from beyond enemies to lovers as they learn to trust each other. The character development of these two was amazing and was probably my favorite part of the book!

I won't lie, the world-building is a bit lacking, but I overlooked it since this is just a prequel to the Flameskin Chronicles and it is more character driven than plot driven. I will say though that the information that was in this book was very well explained. I look forward to reading the rest of the Flameskin Chronicle books!

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I’m an huge fan of this kind of genre. Enemies to lovers is one of my favorite topics and this book was so good! I can’t put it down!
I highly recommend it, you can’t miss this one

The enemies to lover trope is one that's being overdone these day, but Firefrost took the right amount of enemies and the right amount of lovers to make world that was engaging and characters who came off the page as real. I liked the setting of the books and the way it showed different points of view.

This book was exactly what I was hoping it would be - enemies to lovers! and this book did it so well. Sometimes you just need a little love with your fantasy and I'm so glad to have read this one. I found the fantastical elements easily immersive and the storyline between Sol and Kelan to be entrenching. I really enjoyed getting to know the magical system as well as the characters - sometimes a book can concentrate on one and leave the other behind but I found them both to be so well rounded.
The growth between the characters as they face each other as well as the circumstances surrounding them was such a joy to read. I truly hope to read more books in the future by Longley.

If you love the enemies to lovers genre, than this is a title for you! Sol and Kelan must depend on each other to survive the war, need I say more?

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this eARC!

If you're a HelNik shipper or just love the enemies-to-lovers trope, this would be a good book to read. One of my favorite tropes is lovers from two warring sides. So, when Sol and Kelan were forced to work together to survive, I knew I was in for a ride.

I loved how things unfolded throughout the story. To have a fire demon hold the power to control you is scary and fascinating at the same time. It was interesting to read about Kelan’s internal struggle against his pyra, and about his motivation to keep it at bay for as long as he could. I also loved that Sol had her own abilities that helped them survive what they did.

I initially wished there was more to the worldbuilding as I’ve gotten quite sick of the snowy mountains. However, as I’ve learned that this is only a prequel to a duology, I’ve realized that this actually serves as a good foundation for what may have transpired in the main series. I’ve added the other books to my TBR and I cannot wait to read them soon.

This wasn’t necessarily bad, it just felt a little juvenile to me. The romance felt immature and insta-love, especially since they were meant to be mortal enemies, and the plot was repetitive and predictable. There was also a lack of world building? I think the style of writing feels lower YA but the plot wanted to be upper YA and it just didn’t work together.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC of Firefrost in exchange for an honest review.
Firstly the cover is beautiful and would definitely catch my eye in a bookshop.
The premise of this book has everything I enjoy in a fantasy young adult novel; enemies-to-lovers, huntresses, angst, and tension.
The dynamic between Sol and Kellan was great and I really enjoyed reading that part. I also liked the world-building and I found myself able to immerse myself into the book.

I will be buying a physical copy of this book.

This was an okay classic YA fantasy book. Enemies to lovers trope was fun but maybe without the right amount of tension. Worldbuilding could've been a little bit more detailed but it wasn't neccesary

I didn’t know this at first, but this book is just spinoff prequel to the Flameskin Chronicles. It’s a fantastic introduction to the universe and I will definitely be looking into the main series to discover more about the magical world that was refreshing and wonderfully original.
The type of characters were distinct and well written with their magical aspects, you have the Flameskins who are humans born with a fire demon pyra who slowly possesses the host the more they use their fire ability until they are taken over completely, the Saints who are essentially Flameskins who are unable to be possessed by demons and have full control over their powers and Mages who can gain access to magic whilst touching an emberstone but will slowly lose a part of who they are the more they use it. Of course you also have the humans across the continent who fear those with magic and have declared war against them, except the Saints. I even liked the power of the mountain spirits who recognise one of their own and were acknowledged as gods and goddesses through out each magical land told through fables and stories, such as the Ulve Mountain gods with their ice wolves and seeds of magic.

The story itself was told through both perspectives of Sol and Kelan which helped build on their characters as well as the slow burning romance between them.
Both characters on opposite sides of a war, both intertwined through unfortunately circumstances, both having to work together to survive the journey through the snowy mountains, determined to use each other to their own advantage before betraying the other when the time comes. What they didn’t expect was to find a connection on their journey that will create an understanding and unspoken commitment to one another.

I liked Sol and her strong willed stubborn attitude and her bias against the Flameskins race after everything her father had taught her at the beginning. It really shows how much she matures throughout the story but I have to say, the love hate was a bit annoying to start with, I was getting fed up with Sol with the whole ‘I hate him’, ‘I think I like him’, ‘but he’s a demon so I hate him’, ‘but I do I like him’, ‘but he’s a demon’, ‘but I must like him’ aspect. I honestly don’t know how Kelan stuck around at times, Sol was so frustrating that even I couldn’t handle her indecisiveness. Not that I didn’t respect it or completely understand it. She spent her entire life fighting against the one person she now spends every moment with in order to survive, the one being her father fought to protect his family against was now keeping her warm at night – she sees herself as a disgrace to his father’s legacy and everything their village stood against. It’s no surprise she battles with herself when it comes to Kelan. However, I do have to admit, it’s only when she starts questioning everything she knew and comes to to accept her feelings for Kelan that the story really blooms. They come to rely on each other to survive, a romantic us v.s the world rather than fighting each other at every corner which was becoming a bit tedious at times.

Kelan had his good and bad moments, he could go from being a scary ass fire demon army lieutenant, to a scared cowering human in an instant. It was like sometimes he forgot he was born a soldier even without his demon inside him to rely on. How he clung onto Sol like a lifeline, he was too desperate for a fire warrior but it played the part to build up his character and the relationship between them so even I could appreciate that. You were able to see both parts of his character when he let go of his humanity and the person he was so desperate to be when he fought off his inner demon. The way that he was willing to do anything to keep Sol safe was heartwarming, even when she continued to fight and belittle him. I have to say though, even when they began to see something more between them, I really didn’t like how easily Kelan was manipulated to think the worse of Sol after he was willing to give up the world for her. Pick a lane!

The scenery was beautifully dire with the endless snowy setting that goes on for so long in the story, the slow perilous journey through the mountains gave you enough time to get to know the characters as they came to rely on each other. It created a magically isolated setting that tested their strength and patience, you could truly imagine yourself there keeping warm in a cave, hiking through the snow with snowshoes or coming across empty villages on their path to the city hunting for food. Even after they left the snowy mountains, the author took their time to really build up the world and the environment around them whether it was Sol’s home village, travelling across the country to escape the war that threatens to tear them apart or their escape to the dark forest of Hivid Wood full of wraiths and abandoned Flameskin children. The whole world building was fantastic and I can’t wait to discover more in the main chronicles!

This was an interesting story that I found really interesting to read. The story is essentially a romance in a fantasy world, but the adventure the two main characters go on has laid the groundwork for the next book in the series. I am looking forward to reading more about this world

This book.... was a LOT. While I won't lie to you and say that I hated it, I certainly didn't love it either. The writing was bland and repetitive, the characters were frustrating, and the plot was almost nonexistent. And yet, somehow, I couldn't stop reading this book to save my life. It was akin to passing a fatal car crash or a train wreck, where I wanted desperately to look away but just <i>couldn't.</i> I also kind of imagine that this is what it feels like to enjoy soap operas, as it felt very much like a guilty pleasure. Like fast food, I knew it was bad for me, and yet I couldn't help but consume it anyways, down to the last drop.

Though <i>Firefrost</i> is part of a series, it doesn't appear to follow any of the characters from the other books in the series. The story is told from the perspectives of two characters named Sol and Kelan. Sol has been trained her entire life as a huntress, and has just taken a job escorting a princess named Lady Isabelle to a neighboring kingdom for an arranged marriage. Kelan, a Flameskin, has dangerous powers that will one day consume him, and is trying to stop the marriage alliance that will wipe out his people for good. When a sudden avalanche wipes out everyone but Sol and Kelan, the two must learn to work together to survive... and soon realize that they have much more in common than they previously thought.

Because I absolutely loathe giving criticism to someone else's art, I will start with what I liked. This story had a really intriguing and promising premise, and I really liked the idea behind this world. In this universe, Flameskins like Kelan are hunted and killed simply for existing, even as innocent children. Some of the surviving adults have banded together to form their own army to combat the tyrannical government trying to kill them off.

This universe also features mages (who can control fire without losing themselves to it) and dryads, giving it a lot of versatility and opportunity to create interesting stories. I also really liked the idea of a "pyra," or demon, slowly taking someone over as they use their powers, thus making them a legitimate danger to society. This series is filled with a whole slew of morally ambiguous questions about who is right and who is wrong, and I think there's a lot of creativity in the world building.

That being said, the story chooses not to focus on any of this world building. Instead, it follows Sol and Kelan, two mildly interesting characters who meet by chance and fall in love incredibly quickly for being on opposite sides of a vicious war. I will be the first to admit that I am a huge sucker for romance, and can get behind almost any canon romance that is shoved at me in YA. I realized upon reading this book, however, that I <i>do</i> have limits, and there has to be a little bit of substance for me to really get invested.

I'll be frank; the romance in this book felt rushed, juvenile, and insincere. The characters go from hating each other to loving each other almost instantly, and spend the rest of the book waffling back and forth on their feelings and fighting. It felt a lot like the romance in <i>The Notebook,</i> a love story I find nearly intolerable. I'm all for the "enemies to lovers" trope when it is done well, but there was just no reason in my mind for these characters to ever fall in love, especially when they're consistently nasty to one another throughout. While I'm used to romance happening quickly in YA, this was a fairly large book that had the time to really explore these characters and their feelings, and yet the author chose instead to have them fight pointlessly, and threw conflict at them every other chapter to make things more interesting.

In my opinion, if your book is centered around a romance, it should be interesting enough to stand on its own without pointless conflict. To compare the romance in this book to a similar "enemies to lovers" romance, I'll use <i>A Court of Mist and Fury</i> by Sarah J. Maas. ACOMAF, as it's often abbreviated, features two characters who begin as enemies and slowly learn how to trust one another. It's an effective slow burn romance that establishes the characters as allies, then friends, and finally lovers, and it takes MONTHS in the story for this to develop. The romance feels incredibly organic, and the characters have to learn and grow before they become a good fit for one another. This book, on the other hand, relies solely on gimmick. The characters fight, fall in love, fight some more, and the rest of the book is the author throwing conflict at them to keep things interesting.

While I'll admit that I was drawn to some of the drama of this book, there wasn't enough substance behind the characters for me to stay invested all the way to the end. At first, I was hooked on the drama and wondering what was going to happen next, but by the end I was glancing at the bottom of my screen to see how much I had left to read. One particular scene in which there is good tension that immediately fades is when Sol is compelled to marry the prince in Lady Isabelle's place. During her procession to the prince's estate, Kelan and the other Flameskins see her, and Kelan believes he has been betrayed.

Upon meeting the prince, Sol realizes he's gross and creepy and longs for Kelan once again. This scene was setting up some great tension between the two characters, but it is immediately resolved a few pages later when Kelan and the Flameskins "kidnap" her. This is a rinse and repeat plot device, where conflict arises and is almost immediately resolved. Because of this, it feels as if the narrative is simply meandering, with no real purpose or destination. The story doesn't ever feel coherent, and it never really gives you time to get attached to any of the characters outside of Sol and Kelan (who are themselves not very compelling). Overall, the romance feels rushed and insincere, and even though I found myself drawn into what was happening for a few chapters, everything is resolved too quickly for the tension to stick.

I really hate having to give this book a negative review, as I was hopeful at the beginning that it would be an interesting new fantasy series. The bones of a great story were there, but the author spent too much time focusing on the romance, which wasn't written well enough to carry the story. I would've much preferred for the story to focus on the Flameskin rebellion, especially considering the fact that the Tokken people were committing literal genocide on anyone with Flameskin abilities. Focusing on the plight of Flameskins as framed by Sol, someone who grew up hating and fearing them, would've been a lot better than the pointless conflict Longley kept introducing in order to spice up the forbidden romance aspect. In addition, the plot is confused and meandering, and it seems as though Longley isn't quite sure where she wants to take it. It was a good start, but wasn't executed well enough to grab and keep my interest in the end.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't recommend this to fans of romance OR fantasy, as the fantasy takes a backseat and the romance (as mentioned before) just isn't strong enough to carry the story. While I do think Longley has the skills to improve and create a better story in the future, this one just wasn't compelling enough to stick with me. Because there is so much YA fantasy and romance out there, you are almost guaranteed to find another series that does everything this book tried to do successfully, making this one (regrettably) yet another forgettable attempt to write the next big YA fantasy romance.