Title: Winterkeep (Graceling Realm, #4)
Author: Kristin Cashore
Published by: Dial Books
Published on: 2021
Pages: 517 pages
They're stronger than me. But I'm stronger than the way they're trying to make me feel.
Chapter Fourteen, Part Two
Put yourself in my shoes.
It was a usual lazy Sunday when I decided to drop by my favourite bookstore in Jakarta, which sadly is now closed a mere month after that visit. I didn't have a particular book in mind that I wanted to buy then, just looking around if anything caught my attention.
And something did.
There, on the New Released shelves, was a book with the prettiest cover design, the colour blue, and the name of an author I did not expect to see: Kristin Cashore. Winterkeep, the cover says. And for sure, it is the fourth book in the Graceling Realm series!
Winterkeep continues where Bitterblue left off -- more preciously, five years afterwards. Bitterblue still reigned as Queen of Monsea, The Council was still working to ensure good leadership was in place in each kingdom, and Hava grew closer with Bitterblue, her half-sister. Oh, and a new continent was found to the east of Seven Kingdoms and Dells. Called Torla, it consists of five democratic nations (yes, you read it righ: democratic nations in a fantasy book. WOW), with Winterkeep being the closest one to Monsea.
Before we go forward, I need to highlight that the story is told from 5 different perspectives:
Bitterblue (of course!)
Giddon (YAYY!)
Lovisa Cavenda, a young girl from Winterkeep
A telepathic blue fox named, you guess it, Adventure Fox (Ad, for short)
The Keeper, an enormous sea creature that hoarded "treasures"
The plot centers around a mineral rock called Zilfium. It's equivalent to fossil fuels in our real world -- and here's where Kristin grabbed my full attention. The nations in Torla were technologically developed and they used Zilfium to fuel their modes of transportation. The nation of Winterkeep, however, had long banned the use of Zilfium due to environmental concern. The kicker? Monsea was actually sitting on the biggest Zilfium mine and the Torlan nations had been taking advantage of Bitterblue and her advisers' ignorance by buying them for almost no value.
Bitterblue was reasonably upset. Add that to the fact that her envoys in Winterkeep were missing and presumed dead, she then decided to pay the nation a royal visit. Along with her delegates were Giddon, representative of The Council, and Hava, as Monsean royal spy.
Everything seemed to be going swimmingly, until a mishap occurred on the ship that saw Bitterblue get swept away into the ocean and presumed dead. Albeit their grief, the Monsean delegates continued the mission as the plan set by their queen. Giddon and Have tried to find out the reason why Bitterblue's envoys were killed and whether it had anything to do with Zilfium. Along the way, they uncovered a conspiration so dangerous that involved the most powerful family in Winterkeep, in which Lovisa Cavenda, a member of that family, had a huge part no one expected her to take.
EGGLYSIS
No, Bitterblue didn't die. Pfsht, didn't you see the POVs I listed above?
Comparing with the previous three books, Winterkeep feels more enormous due to the expansion of the world and of course the number of perspectives through whom we are looking the story. When I found out that two are from fantastical animals, I didn't really buy the idea. But a few chapters in, especially Ad's chapter, and strangely it worked so well!
It is very obvious on page, even Kristin herself mentioned it in her interview, that Winterkeep has an environmental message that is very important in our world today. As a renewable energy engineer, the plot about Zilfium became my immediate focus and I enjoyed drawing parallels with our own world. The democratic nation of Winterkeep, for me at least, seems like the USA, with the Industrialist representing the Republican party and the Scholar the Democratic. The world expansion is interesting and the way Kristin transitions between each world was done so well that readers won't really take notice when reading it. It wasn't until I finished the book that I realised the world felt rather jarring with elements of half-fantasy, half-utopia representing each continent. But I would still be excited for the next book!
But let's be honest, the main reason this book got me excited was the prospect of mY SHIP FINALLY TAKE SAIL. I have loved Bitterblue/Giddon pairing since, well, the book Bitterblue. For me, Giddon made the most sense as her long-term partner and the fact that they were very comfortable being honest with each other is such a plus. So when picking up this book, this ship was the only thing on my mind. For ~7hours I devoured through 500-ish pages and once every 15 minutes I either d'AWWed or internally screamed at them both tO JUST KISS OKAY THIS HAS GONE ON TOO LONG MY SHIPPER HEART!!!
THE LONGING. THE PINING. I CAN'TTTT.
As a whole, Winterkeep is not as engaging as Bitterblue and Graceling. I honestly would have rated it lower, maybe around the same as Fire, had it not been for that ship. So yeah. Bitterblue/Giddon just bumped up my whole enjoyment of the story.
Also, I love the bit at the beginning where Bitterblue was going through boyfriends in both continents, and one of them was so mad when she broke up with him that he basically said something along the lines of, "You are cold! You give your body, but not your heart" -- and she just vented it out to Giddon who listened patiently. LMAOO poor Giddon.
Overall, Winterkeep...
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