Review: Ice Kissed (Kanin Chronicles #2) by Amanda Hocking

First of all, thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for allowing me to read an egalley of this.  For some reason I didn't get to it before it was published, but then when I knew the third book in the series, Crystal Kingdom, was coming out, I had to hurry up and read this so that I could read my egalley of that as well.  And I have to say, just like the first book in this series, Frostfire, I was once again blown away by how much I love this world and these characters.  And even though it has been since December that I'd read the first book, I was able to jump right back in and not feel like I'd forgotten anything.  In fact, there were little details sprinkled throughout the beginning that totally filled in any gaps of things forgotten, without being a total information dump.  Now, if you haven't read the first book, then I can't promise you no spoilers, so you might want to click on my link for the first book above and read that review to decide if the series sounds good to you.

Bryn and Ridley have come back to their home after trying and failing to find the queen of Skojare.  And with the news of both Konstantin and Viktor both being out there, their own king has decided to prepare for war.  But Bryn doesn't believe the queen is dead like others are saying.  Especially after the queen comes to her in a dream.  She take Ridley to a fairy tale place that her mother knows about and they find the Queen Linnae.  She tells them that she didn't feel safe, and that she'd been warned by Konstantin that she was in danger.  Ridley doesn't believe that Konstantin would help her, although Bryn does, since he seems to have helped her as well.  So Bryn gets sent back to Skojare to help them figure out their own guard and try to fix it so the queen will feel safe.  But while there they find not only tons of issues with how the guard is run, but there is also lots of suspicious behavior by all parties.  When a suspect is finally arrested for a murder, Bryn and Kaspar head back home.  Only to find that the problem has come to them. And when they try to bring it to light, Bryn will find herself on the other side of the investigation.

Of course there is still the romance or the steamy feelings between Ridley and Bryn, and they will have to decide if they should act on them.  And then there is Prince Kennet, who seems to be flirting with Bryn every time she sees him.  But she can't flirt back, as it wouldn't be appropriate the way their society works.  And then there is still the attraction she always had to Konstantin from when she was a child.  She still wants to know why  he tried to kill her father, but still knows he is attractive, and seems to be a good guy.

After reading, I'm so glad I have the egalley of the third book ready to go, and I started it this morning.  I need to know what happens next.  I love that these books have been released just months apart instead of years in between each one.  They could probably have been one big book, but this works as well for me.  I understand the publishers wanting money and all of that. But this is the way to split it up so that we don't have so long to wait in between.  I'm still a huge fan of this author, the writing style is easy to read and definitely grabs you and keeps your attention.  Stay tuned for my review of the third book later this week as I'm reading it right now!