18746546Title: Dead of Winter

Author: Kresley Cole

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Publication Date: January 2015

Genre: Young Adult Fiction/Fantasy

Series or Stand Alone: Series, Book Three

 

 

Synopsis can be found here.
I received a copy of this audiobook for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

 

Review:

 

Evie is must finally choose. We left her, being lead into Death’s bed with a promise that if she became his, he would help her free her love Jack, who had been taken prisoner by the Lover’s card.

Evie is on the run towards Jack as the book opens. But how did she escape? And can she save Jack or is it too late?

Dead of Winter is a wild ride, the reader’s heart being pulled towards Jack, then Death, then Jack and then Death. Evie can’t decide and really, who can blame her? Cole does a stunning job of making both men totally irresistible. There’s no simple answer here and that’s what is so wonderful about this love triangle. It’s done to perfection.

The game continues on with the majority of the book taken up by Evie and her friends trying to dispatch the Lovers. There are a lot of gross and uncomfortable twists as the Major Arcana travel closer and closer to Vincent and Violet. I don’t want to give anything away but there is a reason why Cole is on top of her game and why this series is one of my favorite YA series. It’s sharp and clever, exciting with lots of danger and romance and sexual tension. I never know what to expect and I’m never sure what Cole is going to throw in.

Just when you think things have calmed down, Evie, Jack and Death are thrown into another horrible situation with impossible odds. As Death and Evie’s pasts are slowly revealed, it’s hard not to sit in your car, gripping the steering wheel, listening to every damn word. (Yes that is me, sitting in the parking lot before going into work, dying to just finish this last chapter. Again. And again.)

That said, I have to confess that I did read the book in January when it came out and then listened to the audiobook later on. That’s what a huge fan I am of the series. And while I do love reading, there is something special about being stuck in a car for hours every day but not minding it because I have an awesome audiobook to listen to. That said, I do want to comment on the reader. I know she’s done a lot of other audiobooks (I remember her from Help For The Haunted) and she is talented. But honestly, she doesn’t do it for me in this series. Her voices for both Jack and Death aren’t different enough for me to really hear them properly. Death’s strange accent sounds more like Dracula to me and makes me laugh instead of making me blush. And Jack speaks a bit of French and her French is sloppy, not at all how someone who is familiar with the language would speak. Even her normal voice for Evie isn’t at all how I think Evie sounds in my head. Sigh.

Still, it is captivating enough that I continue to listen.

If you haven’t read books two and one yet, you will need to start at the beginning. The world is after the flash, where all the water dried up and disease ravages the land. The major players are introduced and some killed. The minor players are more important than you might believe. I recommend this series to everyone I meet.

Rating 8 Cookie Worthy