thistlechaser | Book #42 of 2024: The Salt Line | Book #43 of 2024: Icefall

(I was away on vacation for two weeks, so fell behind on reviews. )

The Salt Line by Holly Goddard Jones.

Originally read in 2017. Review here. Happily I remembered nothing at all from my first read, this was like reading the story again for the first time.

Quick synopsis: Set in the near future, ticks have evolved to be very, very deadly to humans, so safe zones in cities are established. A few very rich people pay for trips out to see the wilds that no one sees anymore. Things go a lot worse than anyone could expect.

Brief opinion: I loved this book then and I loved it now. Unfortunately both times the ending didn't work for me, but otherwise I really enjoyed the story.

Plot: For generations, humans haven't been able to leave a few cities. Anywhere wild, anywhere not-urban, anywhere not protected risk having ticks.

If you get bitten by a tick, the best case is that in a few days hundreds of eggs inside you will hatch and burst out through your skin.

So very rich people sign up for trips to all the wild places that humans haven't been able to visit for generations (basic things like forests). They have a lot of protection, but even that protection isn't perfect.

One group of rich people end up in the middle of a trade war between a group that lives in the safe zone and a group that lives out in the wild. (See my original review for a more detailed description of the plot.)

Writing/editing: Both were really good. While my description might make this seem like a horror book, it generally wasn't. The characters and their interactions were the best part of the story.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: The characters were really interesting, all of them. Unfortunately I didn't believe the ending though.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5 stars, loved. Even though the ending didn't work for me, that was a really small part of the story.

------

Icefall by Matthew J. Kirby.

Originally read in 2016. Review here. I remembered the big twist of the story... or thought I had.

Quick synopsis: A viking king sends his family into hiding to wait out a war, but turns out there's a traitor among them.

Brief opinion: Quoting my first review: "Every YA author out there should read this book before they go out and write their own." It's just that good. Plot, characters, everything was perfect.

Plot: The story opens with a viking king's family in hiding. His son (the prince), his eldest daughter (a very beautiful young woman), and his middle daughter (plain, unremarkable, usually overlooked and ignored). Along with them are a few of the king's guards, a slave, a skald (bard), and one woman and her son (to take care of the king's kids). They were sent off to some hidden fjord to be kept safe and wait out a war. Soon after, a group of the king's berserkers arrived to help protect them.

As winter approaches, as the sea freezes and cuts off any chance for them to leave, things kept going wrong. Soon the group realized that there is a traitor among them. But who? Every member of their group seemed not just trustworthy, but the main character's friend.

The story is told from Solveig's perspective. She is the middle daughter, the plain one, "nothing special," the one who no one noticed. However, turned out she had just as many gifts as her beautiful sister, they were just not as easily seen. She is smart and observant, clever with her wording. As the story progressed, the skald took her under his wing and teaches her his trade.

The story concludes with the king's enemy finding them and the kids/surviving berserkers trying to survive.

Writing/editing: The writing was so good! In too many YA books, the adult characters are at best useless, and at worst actively working against the young characters for no reason at all. In this book, the adult characters were realistic, fully complete characters, and grew as much as the young characters did. While I liked the young main character, it's the adult characters I loved.

Every single character had their own motives and it was all so believable and realistic.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: The adult characters were so great. Each one had their own motives and the story had so many moving parts!

The one and only thing I didn't like was that the author said he might write a sequel. It's been eight years now, so I guess he's not going to.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5 stars. A rare perfect book.

------

DNF #33: Steel and Claw: World of Kyrni Book II by Melonie Purcell. I enjoyed the beginning of book 1 of this series, but the last 15% of it took such a different turn, I hadn't planned on getting the second book. I ended up getting it sort of by mistake. I hoped to like it, but sadly it was more like that last 15%, so I didn't enjoy it at all. DNF about 30% in.