Where I Stuck it Out and Got Rewarded

A Winter's Promise by Christelle Dabos
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I won't lie. 150 pages in, I thought I would DNF. So how did I get to 5 stars?

Everything I thought I didn't like was setup. I didn't think it was, but I got punked.

I hated the male MC. I hated his manner. I hated the female MC just taking it. I hated her passivity, her acquiescence, her compliance, her lack of agency. I thought, if this is how it is, if this is how this author writes, I'm done. I'll give you one more chapter...

But it was a slow burn that makes it worth it. Ophelia has opinions, and abilities, and a will of her own, and she eventually pushes back against Thorn and his peremptory way, his thoughtless treatment, his disregard. She starts to learn her way around his strange part of the world, learning who to trust and how to manage, and it gets good.

Set in a kind of sundered world, with disparate societies established in scattered islands of the world, it is a very creative novel with an exciting setting. Ophelia comes from a middle-class bit of sort-of Europe; Thorn comes from a kind of Faerie Winter Court set at the pole, a dangerous world of magic and court intrigue; and there are hints of many other strange places which will figure in the sequels. Why he wants to marry her, and why her community (the Doyennes, actually) allowed the arrangement remains a mystery that Ophelia is on track to solve at the end of the first novel.

Ophelia and the book grew on me. At the end, I was engrossed and loving it. This is one of those books where I feel like you really can say "Give it a chance." I'm glad I did.

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