Book Review: Winterveil by Jenna Burtenshaw

Winterveil
Wintercraft #3
Author: Jenna Burtenshaw
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Paranormal/Ghost
Released: June 25th 2013
Review Source: Greenwillow Books

Jenna Burtenshaw’s dark fantasy trilogy The Secrets of Wintercraft comes to a pulse-pounding conclusion with YA fantasy novel Winterveil.

Teen Kate Winters and her powers are unique. She alone can understand Wintercraft, a book of ancient secrets.

In Winterveil, the veil between the living and the dead is crumbling, and only Kate can stop it. The pull of the veil is powerful, and part of Kate wants to let it fall, allowing the dead overrun the living. Her best friend Edgar Rill urges Kate to save the world of the living. But Silas Dane can influence Kate too. Silas, a merciless villain, has the potential to behave honorably—if he chooses.

A great pick for fans of Daughter of Smoke and Bone and Legend.

When I received this book in the mail, my first thought was, "Oh no! It's Fantasy." I'm not a really a huge fan of Fantasy books because I usually get lost in the details. The devil was not in the details in this story and that ended up being a really wonderful thing because my second hang up for reading this story was that it is the third in a trilogy that I have not read. It's hard as a reviewer to take on this task but I will say that my interest is piqued. I will definitely have to go back and pick up Shadowcry and Blackwatch to see how the story unfolded from the beginning.

Jenna Burtenshaw is a wonderful story teller. She has a fresh voice, like I've said before, when the devil is in the details and I feel like I need to keep a pad of paper handy to keep track of characters, terms, worlds, etc ... I lose focus of what is going on in the story and I give up on fantasy stories pretty quickly. This story was refreshing and I believe it would have been even easier to follow had I had any background on the characters and what had lead them to this point in their journey.

The characters are believable in their decision making and actions. I think my favorite character is Silas. I had a hard time following that he is actually dead but after sifting through reviews for Shadowcry and Blackwatch I was able to clarify that aspect of the story. Some characters are actually dead in this story but roam around with the living. Sounds crazy right? Well it's not and Jenna Burtenshaw executes her story well and I look forward to catching up on the previous books and hope to even update this review when I'm caught up. My hat is off to Burtenshaw for opening my eyes to Fantasy and I will definitely try to give it a go for other authors from now on.