When the cold mage comes for her, who can she trust?
Cat (Catherine) Barahal was rescued, and raised by, her extended family. One of her earliest memories was of her aunt, who told Cat that she must always protect her cousin Bee (Beatrice). The girls are two months apart from each other.
One of the things Cat enjoys doing is reading the journals that her father wrote. It was as though she was trying to learn as much about him, and her mother, as possible. Her uncle gets annoyed when he finds out Cat was reading her father’s journals, but she continued to read them.
Sometime later, a large coach appeared outside the door of the Barahal family’s home. It arrived shortly before Cat, and her aunt and uncle, were going to a lecture. The three of them dressed in their finest clothing. They were going not for the lecture, but to be seen.
A man came out of the carriage and started rapping on the door with his cane. Cat’s aunt and uncle tried to send this person away, telling him that they were about to go to a lecture. He came into the house anyway, along with some of the people who came with him on the carriage.
The man turned out to be a cold mage, from the Four Moons House. He was adept at cold magic, and was important enough to force Cat’s aunt and uncle to let him do something unexpected.
“Are you the eldest Hassi Barahal girl?” the stranger asked. He asked three times, because it was the proper way to do this. Shortly after that, one of this man’s servants came in and did some magic that involved a mirror. Cat didn’t know it at the time, but this magic bound her to this stranger from Four Moons House in a marriage.
Without adding any spoilers into this book review, I can tell you that Catherine Hassi Barahal learned a lot about herself after leaving home. Some of it was completely unexpected, and really shook her up when she discovered that parts of her life was a lie.
Cold Magic, by Kate Elliott is the first in a trilogy of books. I hope to find the other two someday.