Description from GoodReads
Delaney has been kidnapped by aliens. Again. After only a month back on Earth with her hot new alien boyfriend Ruckus, the deadly and devastatingly handsome prince Trystan has dragged her right back to his planet.
While some girls may dream of winning a prince’s heart, Delaney just wishes this one would leave her alone. Instead, she finds herself at the center of both a tense political battle between two alien kingdoms and Trystan’s romantic attentions, both of which are absolutely ruining the life she’s built on Earth. Not to mention the fact that she’s about to be crowned queen of a planet she’s barely even visited. Just another day in the life of an ordinary human girl.
Overall Thoughts
1/5 stars
So if you happened to see my review of the first novel, in the Xenith trilogy you know that I was not impressed with Between Frost and Fury’s predecessor. Mainly, because of the slightly repetitive plot and the hella problematic love interests. Their controlling and possessive behavior was not acceptable in the first book and as Trystan became a more prominent love interest in this novel it was REALLY REALLY not okay. I’ll go into it more in the character section of this review, but overall Trystan was still as manipulative and insane as he was in the first book. The plot for Between Frost and Fury made me feel like I was wandering aimlessly, there was no real distinct structure and many of the motives for the main conflict felt shallow and underexplored. Ruckus is in the story, but he’s pretty much sidelined for the entirety of the novel, which was really strange to me and a waste. Overall, reading this novel was not worth my time and the only reason I wanted to continue reading the trilogy was because of the huge cliffhanger at the end of the first novel, but I can save you some time. Trystan kidnaps Delaney, threatens her and her planet again, and coerced her into coming back to Xenith and being his puppet once again. (Not a spoiler because this is all in the description of the novel and happens within the first couple of chapters.) I wouldn’t recommend this novel because of the problematic love interests, flimsy unrealistic character motives, and weak plot.
Plot
Wow. Delaney is kidnapped. Again. For a sequel to be successful there needs to be a significant power shift in order to keep the reader interested. That’s not what happened here. Instead, Between Frost and Fury starts off exactly how the first book started off, with Delaney being kidnapped (by Trystan this time) and forced to pretend to be royalty on an alien planet. B.F.F felt like a repetition of the first novel. The author does include some new alien customs which were interesting, but for the most part it felt very similar to the first novel. Delaney has to play princess so that Earth isn’t destroyed and try and sort out her feelings for the two alien men in her life. The political “intrigue” is very blase and the world building felt very lukewarm. Like Amid Stars and Darkness, I would not qualify this novel as a “Space Opera” because there were no significant plot twists, the development of motives were weak, and I didn’t feel like I was transported into an otherworldly narrative.
Characters
To quote Susan Dennard “Controlling and jealous behavior is not sexy” and “IS NOT ACCEPTABLE IN A PARTNER”. And yet this is novel is trying to say the opposite with Trystan’s behavior and his “romance” with Delaney. Yes, his character is fleshed out more and we get some background information regarding some tragic elements of his upbringing and we seem him humanized a bit with his interactions with some of his friends. BUT THAT DOES NOT EXCUSE THE FACT THAT HE CONSTANTLY USED PHYSICAL INTIMIDATION ON DELANEY TO “PUT HER IN HER PLACE” IN THE FIRST BOOK. He’s sweeter towards Delaney in B.F.F, but there is STILL an undercurrent of possession, manipulation, and jealous violent behavior in their relationship that does not make their romance healthy at all. YA’s target demographic is young teens in their formative years. Our teenage years are when we are trying to figure out dating and relationships and this novel, puts forth a narrative that tells young girls and boys that it’s okay to accept a romantic partner who LITERALLY KIDNAPS YOU to serve their own agenda, who holds their power over you, and is invasive. WHEN NONE OF THESE THINGS ARE OKAY. But Trystan isn’t the only issue. I think the author tried to make Delaney into a spunky strong heroine, but she’s literally all talk and no action. She can talk a good game, but never tries to do anything to get out of her situation. She’s not clever or strong. She’s just… eh. Olena, the Basilissa, the Rex and everyone else were so predictable and one dimensional that I was constantly rolling my eyes at them. And Ruckus was literally sidelined the entire novel! Like what? No one in the novel was memorable. Except for Trystan, but he was memorable for all the wrong reasons.
Concluding thoughts
The novel was as bad as I expected it to be. Trystan was a VERY problematic love interest and the novel as a whole felt under developed and very shallow. I do not recommend Between Frost and Fury or the first novel, Amid Stars and Darkness, and I will not be continuing the series
