The Cry of the Icemark product reviews

I will be honest i'm not generally a fan of fantasy style novels but was very keen to review this book as it is something my daughter loves. Her passion for all things fantasy started at an early age but really came to a head with the release of the twilight saga movies. When she read the description for this book and seen there were werewolves and vampires she proclaimed that she just had to have it.

I read the first few chapters in one night and felt that it was really slow to get started and was just a little bit flat and uninteresting. I put the book down and didn't pick it back up again until the next day. After a while the story did get going and there was certainly plenty of action with the fierce battles, Hill is very descriptive in how he tells of the dying and I found it to be a bit gruesome, so younger readers might get a bit squeamish at some of the descriptions.

It is sad that Redrought, Thirrins father dies throwing her in to being Queen at such a young age, it was something she was worried about but she was a character that had thrown herself in all types of military training and seemed born to be a leader. It was nice that the hero was a young female character, which I think young girls would really enjoy. Thirrin although only 13 is very wise and knew before her fathers death that she would need to form alliances with creatures from beyond the icemark.

She forms unlikely alliances with the werewolf king who spares her life and all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures prove to be trusted and useful allies. Of course Thirrin is victorious in battle but I think a lot of help came from her young friend Oskan who has magical powers and is a healer. He proves to be very useful and there is a bit of a romance between the two characters.

All in all a good read it is not something I would likely choose myself or pick up and read again but if you are into fantasy reads then you would probably enjoy it a lot more than me.