Raj's Reviews > The Winter Duke

All Ekata wants to do is leave her murderous family behind and go and study at the University. She's a middle child of a duke in a frozen duchy that exists only because of the magic of the city Below, that they have sole control over and trade with. When something causes her entire family to fall into comas they can't be awoken from, she finds herself Grand Duke, hastily choosing a wife from the Bride Show that was meant to be for her brother, the heir apparent, and fighting to keep her throne, and her country, safe from threats within and without.

There's a lot going on here, world building that's good in bits, although the magic was frustratingly ill-defined. I found Ekata to be quite childish and difficult at times, and it wasn't until more than half way through that I realised that she was a child, or a teenager at least: she's just sixteen, which explains a lot. The whole book takes place in just under a week, something that explains the hectic pace and the feeling of Ekata always being off-balance. She's never given a chance to stop and think, but lurches from crisis to crisis, all while realising that she might actually have feelings for the wife she chose for political expediency.

The book makes a big thing about Ekata being intelligent, and her goal is go leave her family to become a scholar. I would have liked to see her showing that intelligence to solve the problems around her. As it was, she mostly just tried to copy her father's (awful) example and inspire fear in those around her. It works about as well as you'd expect.

It's a popcorn book, which I mostly blasted through in a day. Entertaining and, thankfully, in a world drowning in long fantasy series', it's standalone. It's got some issues, but it's still a fun read.