Review: The North Wind

The North Wind by Alexandria Warwick
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It turned out okay, but I really wanted a more likeable protagonist and less fingerbanging.

I feel like, if this had focused on being a fantasy story instead of trying so hard to be romance as well, it would have been so much better. The romance felt forced and led to some incredibly awkward, questionable moments. I could rant, but I'll try not to.

The story is a rather blunt Beauty and the Beast retelling, where Wren is taken from poverty by the beastly North Wind. She assumes she's to be sacrificed but instead she's married off to him, for some awfully thin excuse of his needing her 'royal' blood to fix a barrier around the land. He takes a woman roughly every thirty years but none of this is ever really explained properly.

From the start, Wren is a detestable character. There's a really interesting commentary on feminism and the idea of women being accused of being 'too much', but Wren destroys any sympathy for the argument by being an utter contradictory nuisance. For example, she was allegedly raised in poverty, having to do everything for her twin sister because her parents always looked after one sister more than the other (this is never properly discussed, either), but as soon as she gets servants she's ordering them all around like a queen? It didn't sit right with me.

Also, the cake obsession was so stupid. Don't preach to me about how hard her life has been and then tell me how important cake is to her.

There were so many times when I found myself really caught up in the story, only to be jarred out of it by things that didn't seem to match the characters at all, and it was so incredibly frustrating.

As far as the romance goes, maybe people who are really into romance will appreciate it more, but it made me incredibly uncomfortable. A lot of it didn't make sense to me (especially when Wren spends at least 2/3 of the book insisting she still hates and wants to kill this guy) and it also went into far too much detail when so many other details were missed. I also really didn't like that towards the end there was a throwaway comment about (view spoiler)[Wren selling her body to get sweets for her sister. (hide spoiler)] I felt it was messy and disrespectful and glanced over an important topic that deserved a lot more attention.

I said I wouldn't rant but I really need to vent about this scene: (view spoiler)[ So Boreas comes home from battle so exhausted that he ends up face first on the floor, too tired to move, but Wren insists he has a bath. And he's like, 'please just let me sleep woman' but she gets servants to drag him to the bath anyway. Then he's in the bath and she's like, 'huh, you should get some sleep' but he insists he can't sleep? So she gives him a hand job in the bath to help relax him?? And then is shocked he's so tired he can't get out of the bath??? WTF. Like, what actually was the point here other than a sad excuse for a hand job? That whole scene was such a confusing mess and I hated it with every fibre of my being. (hide spoiler)]

Sigh.

So yeah. The romance sucked and ruined this completely for me.

There was a decent story lurking in here, but it just tried so hard to be another A Court of Thorns and Roses that it fell flat. Which is a shame, because there are some really great ideas in here that I wanted to explore further.

I guess if you love romance with a side of fantasy, you'll appreciate this. If you're okay with a thin plot holding the sex scenes together, you'll get your kicks here. But fantasy lovers will find better B&B retellings elsewhere.

With thanks to NetGalley for an e-ARC

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