Early Review: Winterblaze by Kristen Callihan

Title: Winterblaze

Author: Kristen Callihan

Series: Darkest London, book 3

Genre: Paranormal Historical Romance

Publisher: Forever (February 26^th)

Source: Review copy from publisher

Format: E-book

“Once blissfully in love . . . 

Poppy Lane is keeping secrets. Her powerful gift has earned her membership in the Society for the Suppression of Supernaturals, but she must keep both her ability and her alliance with the Society from her husband, Winston. Yet when Winston is brutally attacked by a werewolf, Poppy's secrets are revealed, leaving Winston's trust in her as broken as his body. Now Poppy will do anything to win back his affections . . . 

Their relationship is now put to the ultimate test.. 

Winston Lane soon regains his physical strength but his face and heart still bear the scars of the vicious attack. Drawn into the darkest depths of London, Winston must fight an evil demon that wants to take away the last hope of reconciliation with his wife. As a former police inspector, Winston has intelligence and logic on his side. But it will take the strength of Poppy's love for him to defeat the forces that threaten to tear them apart.”

Winterblaze is the third book in the Darkest London series by Kristen Callihan.

Sometimes you are a fan of a series and after reading the last book of that series you are left eagerly awaiting and counting the days for the release of the next installment, the date is approaching and you hear everybody talking about it, people who already read the ARC loved it; finally the wait is over and you get the chance you been waiting for and start to read the awaited book, to sadly just stall between its pages because try as you might you can’t get into the story. You start to doubt if is you or the book; why everybody loved it and you are having trouble with it? So you decided the problem must be you, maybe you are not feeling well that day and stop reading the book. Next day you come fresh to start again where you left the day before, but again, same thing happens and after four days of going through this you realized you have barely been able to read over 100 pages, 100 pages in 4 days when you can easily read 400 pages a day, something is very wrong here. You ask around for other people’s impressions, maybe they also had trouble with the beginning so it’s not only you, but after talking to your friends that usually have the same taste in books they say they loved the book. So you decided the problem must be you, after arriving to that conclusion you decided to wait at least a week and see if things are different then. One week later you come fresh again and start where you had left off, this time is a bit better but still you know you are forcing yourself to keep reading and sadly that was exactly what happened to me while reading Winterblaze.

My biggest problem with this book was that after couple of pages I couldn’t care less about Poppy and Winston. First, their issue was something that they just needed to talk like the adults they were supposed to be to solve it.

Even though I liked Win in previous books I disliked him in this one, he learned some hard truths about her wife and instead of asking for an explanation he abandons her. After fourteen years of marriage I would had expected a lot more from him.

Poppy was a bit better, I know lying should be a no-no in a relationship but in her case she had a really good reason to lie. My problem with her was that Win and her sisters treated her like crap and she just accepted all the abuse they inflicted on her as a kind of self-punishment; that made me lose all the respect I had towards her.

As I said before I didn’t care about her or Win, their angst was too much and in my opinion completely unnecessary. The only good parts about them were the flashbacks to the days when they met and the courtship that followed their first encounter.

I loved Poppy’s sisters Miranda (Firelight, first book) and Daisy (Moonglow, second book) in previous books but sadly in Winterblaze they were very insensible regarding Poppy’s situation. At the end they were better but it was a little too late for me.

It was the same case with Win and Poppy’s relationship, at the end, after listening to each other and accepting they both had made mistakes their relationship took a turn for the better but for me it was too late.

What saved Winterblaze for me and kept me reading was the side story concerning Jack Talent (Ian Ranulf’s valet) and Mary Chase. It was a nice preamble for the next book in the series Shadowdance.

Something else I really liked was that in this installment we also learned a lot about the supernatural community of London and the government that regulates them, also known as The Society for the Suppression of Supernaturals (SOS), which Poppy has led since the death of her mother.  

Even though I had many problems with Winterblaze I recommend it to the fans of this series. I’m also planning to read Shadowdance when it’s released.

My Verdict: 3 Paws

Other books in the series

Ember (Novella-prequel)

Firelight

Moonglow

Winterblaze

Shadowdance (November 2013

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