*Ice Born* opens with something rather incongruous: a love scene in the middle of what seems to be a raid of some kind. Immediately after, readers are plunged into extended flashback to explain how Arabella Smith got there. It’s all in the blurb, so it won't be a spoiler: she’s essentially a princess whose family fell on hard times (for *reasons*); this is the story of those adversities and also the grand adventures that led to her being a soldier-turned-revolutionary.

What wonderful world-building! But that seems to come at a cost: the last chapters of the book telescope the story, leading to a really unsatisfying ending and a less-than-optimal reading experience. This is unfortunate, because the previous ⅚ of the book show so much promise. Possibly this could have been solved by spreading out the plotlines in this novel across a series (not something I’m a fan of, but it may have been worth doing)—suggested, anyway, by this novel ending on something of a cliffhanger.

So, again, much promise, but some problems with the execution. I loved all of the details of humanity’s reach across all of these worlds; however, it did feel like the reader was being dropped into something fully conceived in the author’s mind, and not always adequately explained. One other problem for me is that it feels like all of this could happen on just one planet; humanity’s spread across space is a conceit that’s not used to its fullest in this novel although, again, this could be coming in future novels).

Thank you to Clover Hill Press and NetGalley for DRC access.

4.25

Wow! An astounding sci-fi story of a girl's strength and resilience in the face of the incredibly difficult circumstances.

The novel starts out on Titan, some thousands of years in our future, as a woman faces one of the men who wronged her in the past as she tells him the truth of what happened to her. We are brought back to her childhood on one of Saturn's moons, Enceladus, and over the course of the novel learn about what she faced as a child and teenager that set her on her path to where she is now.

As is typical for sci-fi novels, there is a lot of world-building, but the author did a good job of interspersing it throughout the story so that it didn't feel overwhelming or like a drag.

What made this such a great book was the mix of action and strong character development that left me wanting more, for the most part in a good way. More of our main character and her journey, and more of the world the novel is set in (I do plan on checking out the author's series set in this world). What I would have liked more of in this book is where Arabella goes from here. Hopefully Fernandez will write more of her story because there is so much potential!

I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of this book, and as a sci-fi fan I was super excited. I was surprised because this book was not what I expected at all. It has world building, character development and is very much a story about a quest for revenge. I enjoyed being in this world and traveling to different planets, seeing the culture and ways of the people and how that shapes our main character Arabella. We follow her through the years as she exacts her plans and revenge, it was a very interesting story and easy to follow. I did feel that the book was a bit too fast paced and some details were forgotten or lost, but overall I enjoyed this quick fun read,