This review is for emmalita. I haven’t been writing reviews in months due to life reasons but I wanted to share with her how awesome I found this trilogy. Instead of writing her a bunch of texts, I decided it was time to write a review. Emmalita introduced me to Kate Elliott with The Keeper’s Six. Earlier this year I devoured Elliott’s’ The Witch Roads and it got me wanting to explore her back catalog so I got the audiobook version of Cold Magic, book one in “The Spiritwalker Trilogy”. Unfortunately, I intensely disliked the narrator. However, I was engrossed in the story. The only sensible solution was to get a physical copy of the book. And since I was enjoying it so much may as well get books two and three. I’m glad I did because as soon as I finished the first, I dove into book two and then three. Reviewing a series of books is challenging and instead of writing about each book, this is going to be about the series as a whole.
Kate Elliott is an excellent worldbuilder. It’s one of the reasons I love her writing. Cold Magic is set in an alternate version of our world where the Ice Age lasted much longer. Due to the volume of water still locked up in ice, there is no channel separating what we would think of as England and France. While the Roman Empire is no longer in control, it lasted until the year 1000 and it is still alive in a reduced state with heavy influences in Europa. Latin is a common language amongst disparate peoples. Africa and the Amerikes were never colonized. Due to the salt plague that erupted in Mali, many Afric people fled to Europa and mingled with the Celts and by the 1800s many, if not most, characters are described as having skin color in a variation of browns and blacks. Along with humans, there are also beings referred to as goblins and trolls., though the trolls are nothing like what one typically thinks of trolls. They aren’t the hulking beings based on Tolkein but instead a feathered reptilian race reminiscent of intelligent, sentient dinosaurs. The world is in the early stages of an Industrial Revolution and there is magic. Alongside this world is the spirit world, which is more interconnected than most anyone knows. Traversal between the realms is limited to those with the knowledge and deadly to the unprepared.
When the Mande people left Africa and came north into Europa and melded with Celts, and a new type of magic arose, cold magic. Powerful cold Mages can summon winter storms, instantly drop the temperature to literally bring down a hammer of cold, and create intricate illusions. They naturally exude cold magic which has the tendency to snuff out fires and combustion. They light their houses with cold fire and use hypocaust systems, pipes pumping hot air under floors, developed by the Romans to heat their homes. With the rise of cold Mages came their powerful cold Houses and many villages and towns found themselves bound in clientage to the cold Houses. The theme of binding chains echoes throughout the series. Cold Mages inherent conflict with fire puts them at odds with the common man looking to advance technology with combustion. There is a wide class divide between the house born and nobles with everyone else. The world is on the cusp of a revolution as the radicals chafes at the bonds placed on them by the Mage Houses and Princes. There is also fire and other magics which gets explored more in the second and third book, but as one of the main characters is a cold Mage we learn far more about cold magic.
Catherine (Cat) Hassi Barahal is an orphan raised by her Aunt and Uncle from the tender age of six, alongside her devoted cousin Beatrice Hassi Barahal (Bee). The Hassi Barahal household is genteelly poor. They move about at the edge of high society, a well-regarded family but constantly utilizing cost saving measures to maintain appearances. It is at the grace of the academy’s headmaster that Cat and Bee attend university. They are intensively devoted to one another. Their love for each other creates a strong bond that has them constantly looking out for each other’s welfare. When everything Cat think’s she knows about her life is ripped away, the only constant left is her reciprocated love for Bee. Cat’s only recollection of her mother is of her saying, “Don’t tell anyone what you can do. Not ever.” What Cat can do is see the threads of magic. She can listen along the threads to hear distant conversations, help her see in the dark, and most impressively wrap herself in shadows to pass unseen. Due to the family business, she has been trained in sword craft and horseback riding. If you suspect that she will use these abilities to get into and out of all sorts of trouble, you would be correct!
What starts as an ordinary day quickly becomes extraordinary and is capped by a powerful cold Mage, Andevai Diarriso Haranwy arriving at the house to magically bind Cat in a chain marriage with himself. For it turns out that Four Moons House has had a deal in place with the Hassi Barahals to marry the eldest daughter before the age of her majority, and Cat is older than Bee by two months. In a matter of moments, Cat is ripped away from the only life she has ever known and thrust into the companionship of an arrogant, but also devastatingly handsome, cold Mage of high station and power. However, Andevai was in the city to do more than marry Cat and the two are soon on the run from a mob. While on the run Andevai treats Cat abominably as he throws a defensive wall between them. Unfortunately for Cat, she soon finds herself on the run again with Andevai in pursuit.
At first Cat and Andevai seem total opposites but Cat begins to realize that his arrogance is armor and he is not the Magister that he seems. Both Cat and Andevai struggle with their identity. Cat having to rebuild it with new knowledge of her history and Andevai having to reconcile his past with his present to find peace in himself. They each undergo their own journeys and transformations and it is very satisfying watching their relationship grow and develop. Cat has conflicted feelings for Andevai, she’s physically attracted but for the longest time she just wants to be rid of their chained marriage. But as he reveals more of himself, she begins to be drawn in. For Andevai it’s a slow awakening of his attraction to her. Book one ends on a bombshell declaration. Book two is Andevai courting Cat. Book three Cat and Andevai finally come to each other. However, the narrative constantly has the characters pushed together and pulled apart so we only spend short periods of time with the two together and see how well they complement each other. This is one of those series I wish had another book so we can have an entire story with the couple together the whole time. Fortunately, Elliott did write a short coda to the series on her website, The Courtship and we get a glimpse of what their future will look like. As the series is written with a YA audience in mind, sexy times are fade to black scenes. On her website she also wrote an adult sex scene Bonus Chapter 31.5 to fill in one of the fades to black moments in book two.
In the trilogy chains and bonds are both detrimental and in cases of love, forms of strength. Cat is chained to Andevai by magical marriage, through him she is bound to Four Moons House. She has an even further bond in the spirit world. But she is also bound in love to her dear Bee. Andevai is similarly bound with the House and his devotion to family. Laborers and whole villages are bound by the laws of Princes and clientage to cold Houses. Creatures of the spirit world are bound to powers beyond most normal people’s ken.
The story moves across the books at a quick pace in a globe-trotting and spirit world traversing adventure. Poor Cat barely gets a breather between one misadventure and the next. The world is at a moment of change. Radicals are pushing for proper representation, Mage Houses are trying to maintain the status quo, and a General is fomenting war to enforce a legal code that will abolish clientage and establish himself as a new Emperor in Rome. Cat bounces between the different factions wanting to use, manipulate or control her. Alongside Cat’s adventure, Bee has her own journey of radicalism and claiming a life of her own outside of what has been expected as a daughter of the Hassi Barahals. Cat and Bee collect an assortment of friends and co-conspirators along the way as they stive to reach their goals of freedom. Elliott fills the side cast with memorable characters. A favorite of mine is Rory but to say anything would be to ruin the surprise of who Rory is.
I tore through this series, finding it hard to put down, much to the detriment of my sleep! Elliott is a fantastic writer and I would recommend this series to anyone who enjoys deep and well thought out world systems with witty bantering dialogue. I like that there doesn’t seem to be one specific magic system. Different people access and manipulate magic in different ways. I adore Cat and Andevai’s slow romance, though at times I want to knock their 20 year old heads together. The adventure is a fun romp as Cat careens through the world, impulsively thinking with her feet and jumping before she knows where she’s landing. The trilogy stayed consistently 4 stars across the three books, and I highly recommend it.
