Tuesday, April 2, 2013

North of Need by Laura Kaye

Her tears called a powerful snow god to life, but only her love can grant the humanity he craves…

Desperate to escape agonizing memories of Christmas past, twenty-nine-year-old widow Megan Snow builds a snow family outside the mountain cabin she once shared with her husband, realizing too late that she’s recreated the very thing she’ll never have.

Called to life by Megan’s tears, snow god Owen Winters appears unconscious on her doorstep in the midst of a raging blizzard. As she nurses him to health, Owen finds unexpected solace in her company and unimagined pleasure in the warmth of her body, and vows to win her heart for a chance at humanity.

Megan is drawn to Owen’s mismatched eyes, otherworldly masculinity, and enthusiasm for the littlest things. But this Christmas miracle comes with an expiration—before the snow melts and the temperature rises, Megan must let go of her widow’s grief and learn to trust love again, or she’ll lose Owen forever.


Where to Buy
 

An enchanting read that will have you believing in magic. Almost from page one, Kaye pulls you into her winter wonderland and keeps you spellbound, riding the roller coaster of emotional ups and downs right along with her characters and hoping that their idyllic interlude might never end.



Megan is easy to like, warm and giving, though still grieving terribly for her late husband John. Her childlike joy as she sets about building the snow family at the beginning of the book is heartening, and you can feel your heart break right along with hers when her buried grief suddenly breaks through and leaves her sobbing on the snowman. Because of that deep seated sense of loss and grief, however, I did find it just a little bit off that she could fall so completely for Owen so quickly. There's such a sense of rightness about their relationship though that it's a fleeting concern.

Owen is just about everything a woman could want in a man. Strong, caring, there when you need him, and, oh yeah, amazing in bed. I've little doubt that any woman who lives somewhere that regularly gets a lot of snow would want him for his handy dandy snow clearing abilities alone. The main drawback to being with him would be that a woman would have to frequently risk frostbite to be with him, though he does have a way of dealing with that that's kind of cool.

I liked the pacing of this book and the way the plot and their relationship kept moving forward quickly but not so quickly that it felt rushed at all. The sense of urgency comes through, since Owen does have a time limit, but that urgency never overwhelms the story or leads to any unnatural progression of feelings between them. Every page pulls you in and tries to keep you reading, and even though I had to read this mostly in short increments over my lunch break, I never had trouble getting right back into the action and the story flowed so smoothly that I found myself getting through it much quicker than I often do.

All in all, this is a book I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a quick, light, feel-good romance, particularly one with a bit of a paranormal bent to it. Lovers of paranormal romance will certainly like this, though I'm sure contemporary romance readers will find it just as enjoyable as well. 4½ well-earned stars to this one.



1 comment:

  1. Ooh I loved this one too. And definitely agree on Owen being pretty much everything you could want. He's still one of my favorite heroes. I loved that he built her an igloo :)

    Great review :)

    ~Anna
    herding cats & burning soup

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