Claire Eliza Bartlett

The troublemaker. The overachiever. The cheer captain. The dead girl. Like every high school in America, Jefferson-Lorne High contains all of the above. After the shocking murder of senior Emma Baines, three of her classmates are at the top of the suspect list: Claude, the notorious partier; Avery, the head cheerleader; and Gwen, the would-be valedictorian. But appearances are never what they seem. And the truth behind what really happened to Emma may just be lying in plain sight. As long buried secrets come to light, the clock is ticking to find Emma's killer - before another good girl goes down.… (mehr)

I feel kind of bad for not liking this more because there is nothing wrong with this book. In fact, I loved the fact that all titles could be gender neutral and that any sexuality was fine. There are a bunch of tropes in this fantasy kingdom, but mysogyny was not one of them.

It's just that these tropes didn't really work for me. There is this fantasy kingdom and the main character is a princess who is forced to lead it because her entire family is cursed. Cue some political drama and an arranged marriage for the alliance.

I didn’t care about the plot, sorry. All I wanted was for the main character to get to her university and get a girlfriend. I didn’t love the romance in only 5 days, but they get along and have a few genuine conversations and that’s more than I can say about some other books.… (mehr)

Ekata has her future planned out and it mostly involves getting away from her murderous family. Her brother is in line to become the formal heir and she wants to study science.
She lives in the frozen city of Kylma above and Kylma below is a fantastic underwater kingdom that provides the magic that her family trade and use. Just before a bridal ball all of her family, bar her, fall victim to a sleeping sickness that leaves her as the only one who can rule, except her foster brother. He has Plans. Part of it is to marry her and subsume the kingdom and she doesn't trust that he will leave her alive for long. Also she's attracted to someone else, which is going to complicate things. Add in where everyone hates her family and there are many attempts to kill her and you have an interesting tale of magic and complications.
I could have done with a little more nuance to the bad guy but overall it was an interesting read.… (mehr)