Book Review of Winter’s Passage by Julie Kagawa

Title: Winter’s Passage

Author: Julie Kagawa

Release Date: June 1st, 2010

*If you have not read Iron King this will contain spoilers!*

Meghan Chase used to be an ordinary girl…until she discovered that she is really a faery princess. After escaping from the clutches of the deadly Iron fey, Meghan must follow through on her promise to return to the equally dangerous Winter Court with her forbidden love, Prince Ash. But first, Meghan has one request: that they visit Puck–Meghan’s best friend and servant of her father, King Oberon–who was gravely injured defending Meghan from the Iron Fey.

Yet Meghan and Ash’s detour does not go unnoticed. They have caught the attention of an ancient, powerful hunter–a foe that even Ash may not be able to defeat….

Summary from Goodreads.com

My Review: This is actually a novella not a full length book that you can get online in e-book format.  The story picks up exactly where Iron King left off, Meghan is going with Ash to the Winter Court and this story tells their  journey to that court.  All the major characters are back, although poor Puck is still in a “coma” and does not play a huge role in this book.  Which I was OK with because I really like Puck but I am team Ash, sorry team Puck fans!  Anyways, my favorite character in this series is Grimlakin and he always pops up in the most unexpected place possible.  I am still not sure how that cat travels so quickly or manages to get himself places faster than anyone else could.  I guess that part of the mystery that surrounds Grim, and I am not sure I would want it any other way.

As the story progresses, I am reminded of how much I love the way Julie describes things in her stories, for example

” an eerie gray forest surrounded us, mist creeping over the ground like a living thing, coiling around the horses legs…everything was dark and faded, like all color had been washed out, a forest trapped in perpetual twilight.”

Descriptions like that make it very easy for me to lose myself in the book that I am reading and be taken into another world where anything can happen.  Not surprisingly Meghan and Ash run into some trouble on their journey to the winter court.  They are being hunted by an unnamed, unseen, creature that haunts their steps and keeps them traveling quickly.  As they journey there are those little moments between Meghan and Ash that I love, where he puts down his walls and lets his feelings for Meghan come to the surface.  Julie does a great job of giving us enough of those moments that we are happy, but not enough that we are ever fully satisfied with the progression of this relationship.  I have loved reading Meghan’s journey and Julie has done an amazing job of describing this magical tale.  I look forward to Iron Daughter which releases August 1st 2010.

Do you want to read Winter’s Passage?  Click here so you can download this book free until July 31!