The danger and evil in the land of Primoria is heating up! Will the characters survive the onslaught?
Sequels are hard to do well, and Ice Like Fire didn’t pull me in as quickly or as easily as Sara Raasch’s first novel, Snow Like Ashes. I had a difficult time relating to Meira and the other characters. Meira seemed to spend most of the book complaining about how she doesn’t like magic. Mather, the boy she once loved (and perhaps still does?) was a drunken mess at the beginning of the story, shutting out everyone–including Meira, for reasons that didn’t make a ton of sense. Theron also was annoying at times and Meira’s new friend she meets in Summer, Ceridwen, was abrasive and took (ironically) a while to warm up to.
The pace was slow for the first half of the book as Meira travels around looking for keys to shut the magic chasm, which also didn’t to distract me from the irritating characters. But Meira’s hard exterior cracks about halfway through, enabling her friends–along with the reader–to empathize with her more easily.
This is also about the time when secret plots and evil schemes explode, so if you can make it through the first half of the novel, it’s worth it! I could hardly tear my eyes away, which made up for the languid beginning.
Raasch did do an excellent job continuing to craft the world of Primoria. My favorite part of this book was seeing how she imbued each kingdom with its own personality, reflected in their dress, food, and magic: the raging euphoria and fiery, loose outfits of Summer, the advanced technology of Yakim, and the beautiful artwork of Ventralli. I clearly got a sense and feel of the priorities and diversity of each culture. I wish they existed so I could go see them for myself! (Except perhaps for Summer, which 
just sounds chaotic and hot).
I enjoyed watching Meira mature into a woman who saw the power of choice and sacrifice and was willing to do whatever it took to save her people. I want to love as freely and as powerfully as her! I can’t wait to see if she can truly do what has to be done to help her people in the third and final novel, Frost Like Night.
Ice Like Fire was a bowl of lukewarm ice cream with bursts of refreshing mint pieces that kept me eating it despite the too-warm temperature.
Have you read any books lately that were difficult to get into but you couldn’t put down by the end?
