Review: The Winter King
So once again I want to give a shout out to my girl Nins who distracted me from my uni research with this fabulous book. She linked me to this book, and another one, and asked my opinion. At first, I was a little disinterested in The Winter King by C.L Wilson, but that was soon refuted when I received some frantic texts telling me I needed to read that book. And read it I did, and do my uni work I did not. Even as I’m writing this review, I still haven’t finished my research.
I thought that Wilson did a pretty good job with her world-building, and I guess there were minor things that just came out of nowhere – like the Calbernans, but something like that can be looked over and forgiven. The world was pure fantasy, and I couldn’t really tell if it was based off something real, but I liked it, and I don’t think there were any holes or grievances to be found. Also I thought the character development was also pretty good, however maybe the relationship between Khamsin and Wynter could’ve been a bit more clear, like where they stood, how they felt, and then the development of that, etc. Nins even said that Wilson’s writing is on par with Judith McNaught – which is a huge compliment.
Also, I really loved the originality of the story with the weathermages and the really cool powers and such.
Beginning with Khamsin (who has a really super long name that I don’t actually remember). I thought she was a pretty tough girl and such a badass, and the fact that her weathergift was to do with storms was also pretty hectic and just added to her badassery and it matched her personality. I’m so glad that Khamsin wasn’t portrayed as a damsel in distress kind of character with some girly nice weathergift like her sisters. Although it isn’t clear, Khamsin does develop as a character – and not just her feelings towards Wynter, she grows stronger and smarter and I just didn’t really find anything about her to dislike.
There was only one thing that I disliked about this book and that was to do with Wynter, specifically his name. His name is Wynter, and he is the Winter King? (????????) Anyways, I liked his personality and the fact that he was tough and dominant and honestly I wouldn’t mind switching places with Khamsin for a little while if she gets him every night. I actually liked his character a lot, I thought that he was a good mix of both good and evil so to speak, and I loved the development of his feelings for Khamsin. I thought that Wynter was a strong character, pushing through all of his grievances and mostly looking out for others first.
So with the story itself, it wasn’t boring and I enjoyed it so much that I put off everything else I needed to do in order to finish this book. There were some elements of the book that surprised me, and things I didn’t expect, and I want to give kudos to the great writing and story-telling, but it might just be because I’m not very good and predicting events in books, or even movies for that matter. I haven’t rated a book five stars in a while, so you can say that this one really caught my attention, haha.
Go read it.
