Cold Spell by Jackson Pearce - ADVISABLE

Pearce, Jackson  Cold Spell, 323 pgs.  Little, Brown and Company, 2013.  $18.00  Content: Language: R (31 swears; 11 “F”); Mature Content: PG-13; Violence: PG-13.  

Kai and Ginny have been best friends since they were seven.  Their home lives have made them dependent on each other and now that they are teens they have started having a more romantic relationship and have planned on being together after high school.  Winter sets in and Kai’s grandmother passes away, two events that are tied together because of the dark magic of a pretty girl named Mora.  Mora gets between Ginny and Kai and takes Kai to the north, where Ginny has to travel to save Kai from the power Mora holds over him.  

This is a modern retelling of the Snow Queen.  Pearce is an amazing writer who creates believable characters who face dark magic and become stronger because of the challenge.  This is the fourth book in Pearce’s Fairytale Retellings series.  You can read this book on its own, but to better understand the monsters/werewolves and the dark world that Ginny is fighting it’s nice to have read the three previous books.  This book would be essential for middle school and high school if it wasn’t for the eleven “F” words.  

HS-ADVISABLE.  Reviewer, C. Peterson.