Steel Hand, Cold Heart ~ Rachel Menard

★★★★☆

I received this eARC from the author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of this book in any way. All quotes are taken from the uncorrected proof and are subject to change.

Gustaf the brave had fought and bled,

Then found himself cold and dead.

He pleaded with the Goddess Hel,

That if She would only make him well,

He would kill ten men that night,

And send them to Her without a fight.

She agreed and took him back,

To his body bent and black.

When his spirit stepped inside,

The pain and rot forced his cries.

He begged Her again to set him free,

Which She did most generously.

Death cannot be fooled or bought.

Best be gone than left to rot.

Obligatory Summary

Carina is an outsider wherever she goes: in her homeland, where she escaped Death, and in her new home, where she doles it out as a Daughter of Hel. But when her rival betrays her, she's forced to befriend her kidnappers, a motley crew of three boys. They're taking her to their home, the marvelous city of Fortis. Carina has a plan: kill them and take their ship, bringing the spoils home for glory. But what if it's not that simple? What if these boys mean more to her than she's willing to admit?

Can she kill them, in the end?

My Thoughts

I am actually surprised I liked this so much, and here's why: Carina, the MC, is exactly the kind of female character I usually hate. She's cutthroat and brutal and very, very prideful. She had a bad temper and terrible self-control. I was constantly annoyed with her for messing things up. And yet somehow, despite all this, I liked her. The other characters balanced her out very well, so she was never too ridiculous. She was also pretty relatable and human in her flaws. I understood her, despite not liking her as a person, and saw where she came from. The plot was pretty non-linear, but it honestly focused more on characters than on events, and watching her grow closer to the boys was really great and well done. At the end of things, she really reminded me less of Aelin and more of Manon, which is significantly better in my opinion.

The boys were all fantastic, and I honestly can't pick my favorite. Flavian was hilarious and fairly good bi rep.

"Land Ahoy!" Flavian shouted.

"It's Land Ho," Nik corrected him.

"Well whatever it is. It's there."

Nik was great and added a lot of depth to the story. Mateo was honestly fantastic and his perspective on life contributed to the general theme of life versus death very well.

The world was cool, and I liked the individual set pieces a lot, especially the isle of Death, but I would have liked perhaps a bit more time spent in each location. Likewise, there were some exposition dumps scattered throughout that felt a little retcon-ish, and I would have preferred they were hinted at earlier in the book so their introduction didn't feel so random. That was a fairly minor issue though and it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the story.

I really liked this, and I'm hoping there will be more with these characters, but as it is, it works well as an open-ended standalone. I'm excited to read more by Menard in the future!

"It's our imperfections that make us perfect."

PS this helped me realize that I am absolute t r a s h for spooky ghost women haunting people. It happened in Bloodleaf and it happened again in this, and I was all for it both times. More please, YA. Chop chop, I don't have all day.

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