Winter's Passage: A Novella Review

Description: (taken from Goodreads)

Meghan Chase used to be an ordinary girl..until she discovered that she is really a faery princess. After escaping from the clutches of the deadly Iron fey, Meghan must follow through on her promise to return to the equally dangerous Winter Court with her forbidden love, Prince Ash. But first, Meghan has one request: that they visit Puck--Meghan's best friend and servant of her father, King Oberon--who was gravely injured defending Meghan from the Iron Fey.

Yet Meghan and Ash's detour does not go unnoticed. They have caught the attention of an ancient, powerful hunter--a foe that even Ash may not be able to defeat....

My Review:

To start off with, I actually began reading the second novel, The Iron Daughter, before I wrote this review. There's a clip of Winter's Passage in The Iron Daughter that made me ask the question, "Well, why did Julie Kagawa even bother writing the novella?" But as I thought about it more, I realized the genius in her doing so.

Winter's Passage, I found, is mainly used for world building. Since The Iron Daughter starts off with Meghan already in prison, we do not get to see the world of the Winter territory.  Yet, in this novella, Kagawa gives adequate description by using excellent prose of this scary, snowy place. I love the way she does this. Every time I start reading one of her books, it's like I'm actually in the story with the characters, or watching them on screen.

Also, she was able to bring out the chase of The Hunter with more suspense and action than she did in the beginning of The Iron Daughter--which only says a word or two about the formidable foe. I actually thought The Hunter was pretty cool... haha. I tend to think most wolf-like characters are awesome.

I liked how I got to see more interaction between Ash and Meghan. Although I loved The Iron King (find my review here) I found their romance a bit sudden. I mean, looking back I can see that it was being built up from the start, but when I was reading it I was like, "Wait, they're in love now?" But in this novella, it proves that the events in the first novel really did bring Meghan and Ash together. And despite their differences, I like that they are together. They're total opposites, but, hey. Opposites attract, right?

Another thing I enjoyed was that Meghan went to go check on Puck. She didn't forget about him, even though she was forced to be on her way to the Winter Court, she went back to check on her best friend. Though I connected with Meghan in The Iron King, it made me like her even more that she cares so much about her friends and what happens to them.

Overall, this was a great novella! I actually am reading this one from the printed book The Iron Legends (which contains the three novellas for this series), because I have this lovely OCD thing about owning an entire series either in actual book form or all Kindle form and not mixing them, so when I saw this at Barnes and Noble, I quickly swiped it up with much excitement. I love novellas!

I give this a 4.5 out out of 5. I just LOVE the way Kagawa describes her mythical Faery worlds. It's one of my favorite things about these books.