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Iced Hearts
Samuel lived most of his life as a middling engineer in the Midwest. Once the Galactic Union(GU) arrived, life changed little, other than his wife of thirty years passing away from brain cancer. For years, he has lived as a recluse, trying to be forgotten about by others, left alone to fade away. He took a deal from the GU to let him do just that. He would man an outpost on the galaxy's far reaches, ensuring it functions without issue. He thought this was perfect, allowing him a quiet place to live the rest of his life, somewhere no one cared about what he did.
Scarletra, a young, voluptuous Varintol woman, desperately wanted companionship. However, after fleeing from her tribe, her mother's wishes, and destiny, this was impossible. She had spent years in solitude and managed a meager, with only her carvings and the icy winds for company. One day, while out hunting, she spotted movement in one of the GU outposts. The prospect of meeting someone and escaping the glacial loneliness of her home filled her with hope.
How will the curvaceous ursine alien manage to break through the walls of a stubborn old man who is determined to be left alone to die? Their path is fraught with obstacles-her family's scouts, the threat of megafauna, and a language barrier. The journey ahead is uncertain, but their encounter will change them both for the better and melt their iced hearts.
Scarletra, a young, voluptuous Varintol woman, desperately wanted companionship. However, after fleeing from her tribe, her mother's wishes, and destiny, this was impossible. She had spent years in solitude and managed a meager, with only her carvings and the icy winds for company. One day, while out hunting, she spotted movement in one of the GU outposts. The prospect of meeting someone and escaping the glacial loneliness of her home filled her with hope.
How will the curvaceous ursine alien manage to break through the walls of a stubborn old man who is determined to be left alone to die? Their path is fraught with obstacles-her family's scouts, the threat of megafauna, and a language barrier. The journey ahead is uncertain, but their encounter will change them both for the better and melt their iced hearts.
- GenresRomance
479 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 16, 2024
44 people are currently reading
48 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 20, 2025
Cute story, very flawed writing. **Spoilers**
This was a cute book. Compelling enough to finish even with continuity issues, bad grammar, and very bad editing, which I don't always do.
First, continuity issues. There are more than a few. Worse, you will be told something on one page, then only a couple pages later you will be told something directly contradictory. For example, the first time Scarletra drinks beer we're told that it is much stronger in alcohol than her homebrew wine, but only a few pages later we're told it is weaker than her homebrew wine. The MC also wavers between relatively physically weak and surprisingly strong based on the whims of the plot. He's described as being an engineer who sometimes visits job-sites, but he has rippling arm muscles, but he can't hike very well.
Spelling and grammar. Entire sections of the book read like speech to text that hasn't been read by the author to verify editing. I don't think the author used 'peeked' correctly a single time in this book. There are dozens of other examples I didn't bother to write down.
Scarletra is called by a number of different names throughout the book including the very unfortunate 'Scatletra' along with the more mundane 'Scareltra' and more.
The outpost survived for decades, if I remember correctly, without any on site maintenance, yet the solar panels on the roof need to be cleared of ice and snow daily to maintain power. In the beginning there are notes from a previous tech that power outages require hands-on maintenance weekly to maintain power, yet the power was active when the MC gets there. So, was the outpost manned the previous week or what?
The vocabulary of the author is a little odd as well. I learned the word 'velutinous' due to the frequency of usage. It's nice to learn new words, but it's odd to use esoteric $4 words when the author doesn't know the difference between peeked and peaked. Also, the abbreviation for 'push to talk' is spelled out the first time it's used, but advanced shot-placement drills (where bullets are aimed on an enemy combatant and in what quantity) are just left hanging out there. I think it's safe to say that 'PTT' is a much more commonly understood term than 'bill drill'.
Let's see, what else. The large radar dish is mentioned multiple times. It's really just a contrived plot point to get the MC away from the outpost during the climax so that Scar and the delegation are stuck at the outpost playing tower defense against waves of iron age level ursine combatants. It's mentioned that it takes 3 days to get there, but the MC gets back in about a day pushing the vehicle to Its limits. Maybe it was supposed to be a 3 day round trip? Didn't read like that to me, but I could be wrong. I don't even understand why the vehicle had to be away from the outpost at all. Just say it needed maintenance, or needed to be charged, or not use it at all, since it just served to take the good guys to a drop zone for pickup when I doubt there was anything the enemy could do to disable the escape shuttle. Just make the shuttle the safety bottleneck, not the ground vehicle.
The dialog is fairly well written, so it surprised me that contractions were, as far as I remember, never used. I suppose it could have been a quirk of the common language, but said language is explained to be very simple and the lack of contractions just made it sound clunky, not efficient.
Despite all of that, I still enjoyed the book. It definitely doesn't deserve 4 stars in the end, but an aggregate of anything under 4 stars on Amazon is a pretty terrible rating, and the story underneath the mess is compelling enough for me to want it to succeed.
This was a cute book. Compelling enough to finish even with continuity issues, bad grammar, and very bad editing, which I don't always do.
First, continuity issues. There are more than a few. Worse, you will be told something on one page, then only a couple pages later you will be told something directly contradictory. For example, the first time Scarletra drinks beer we're told that it is much stronger in alcohol than her homebrew wine, but only a few pages later we're told it is weaker than her homebrew wine. The MC also wavers between relatively physically weak and surprisingly strong based on the whims of the plot. He's described as being an engineer who sometimes visits job-sites, but he has rippling arm muscles, but he can't hike very well.
Spelling and grammar. Entire sections of the book read like speech to text that hasn't been read by the author to verify editing. I don't think the author used 'peeked' correctly a single time in this book. There are dozens of other examples I didn't bother to write down.
Scarletra is called by a number of different names throughout the book including the very unfortunate 'Scatletra' along with the more mundane 'Scareltra' and more.
The outpost survived for decades, if I remember correctly, without any on site maintenance, yet the solar panels on the roof need to be cleared of ice and snow daily to maintain power. In the beginning there are notes from a previous tech that power outages require hands-on maintenance weekly to maintain power, yet the power was active when the MC gets there. So, was the outpost manned the previous week or what?
The vocabulary of the author is a little odd as well. I learned the word 'velutinous' due to the frequency of usage. It's nice to learn new words, but it's odd to use esoteric $4 words when the author doesn't know the difference between peeked and peaked. Also, the abbreviation for 'push to talk' is spelled out the first time it's used, but advanced shot-placement drills (where bullets are aimed on an enemy combatant and in what quantity) are just left hanging out there. I think it's safe to say that 'PTT' is a much more commonly understood term than 'bill drill'.
Let's see, what else. The large radar dish is mentioned multiple times. It's really just a contrived plot point to get the MC away from the outpost during the climax so that Scar and the delegation are stuck at the outpost playing tower defense against waves of iron age level ursine combatants. It's mentioned that it takes 3 days to get there, but the MC gets back in about a day pushing the vehicle to Its limits. Maybe it was supposed to be a 3 day round trip? Didn't read like that to me, but I could be wrong. I don't even understand why the vehicle had to be away from the outpost at all. Just say it needed maintenance, or needed to be charged, or not use it at all, since it just served to take the good guys to a drop zone for pickup when I doubt there was anything the enemy could do to disable the escape shuttle. Just make the shuttle the safety bottleneck, not the ground vehicle.
The dialog is fairly well written, so it surprised me that contractions were, as far as I remember, never used. I suppose it could have been a quirk of the common language, but said language is explained to be very simple and the lack of contractions just made it sound clunky, not efficient.
Despite all of that, I still enjoyed the book. It definitely doesn't deserve 4 stars in the end, but an aggregate of anything under 4 stars on Amazon is a pretty terrible rating, and the story underneath the mess is compelling enough for me to want it to succeed.
May 10, 2024
Loved this story
Its refreshing to see a story with an older MC, I have noticed a few romance stories peaking out with characters who are in their 30s, 40s and now even 50s!
The character building for the MC was done so well and with so few words, kudos to getting the point across so well! The relationship between the two main characters built in a way that i didn't expect and i was very happy for.
I even was on the edge of my seat for the climax! Also worth noting that this book felt longer than the average novel (not to say it dragged, just that a lot happens and it took me longer to finish than i expected)
Overall VERY happy with this story and look forward to reading more by this author
Its refreshing to see a story with an older MC, I have noticed a few romance stories peaking out with characters who are in their 30s, 40s and now even 50s!
The character building for the MC was done so well and with so few words, kudos to getting the point across so well! The relationship between the two main characters built in a way that i didn't expect and i was very happy for.
I even was on the edge of my seat for the climax! Also worth noting that this book felt longer than the average novel (not to say it dragged, just that a lot happens and it took me longer to finish than i expected)
Overall VERY happy with this story and look forward to reading more by this author
October 28, 2025
Very good book
This is a fine fantasy adventure novel. It is well written and edited. I especially like the children. I anxiously await the author's next novel.
This is a fine fantasy adventure novel. It is well written and edited. I especially like the children. I anxiously await the author's next novel.
Read
January 7, 2026It's nice to see a book with a more monstrous FMC, and this one didn't disappoint. Our bear woman was well-written, sweet, and nicely alien. I especially liked the depiction of past mental traumas, it definitely hit emotionally.
May 13, 2025
So this was an interesting one. I stumbled across this book when looking for Self-published romance stories and decided to give it a try on my kindle. The idea sounded interesting and I wanted to give it a shot. And... it was.... fine? I guess?
Short version of the story, this older human guy's wife dies and goes to an ice planet as a job to monitor the planet. sort of a "i'll work here until i die because i'm sad" kind of vibe. there he meets a bear lady and she falls in love with him and tries to coax him out of his depression and back to enjoying life.
Content warning: This is a romance novel, so YES there are indeed graphic sex scenes in here, in case that's a thing you can't handle. There is also copious amounts of violence.
Ah yes. the violence. you see, the bear lady is part of a tribe and she ran away, so the tribe is after her. but i'll get into the violence in a minute.
So, right of the bat, i'll say one of the biggest irks i had with this book was the main bear girl's description. I couldn't QUITE in my mind's eye see what she looked like. I got SOME idea, but especially when it came to her face, i couldn't figure out what she looked like. were we talking Human ish face? Bear face? some kind of hybrid like Frenni Fazclaire? They never really described her face that well (and yes, i went back several times when they described her and i couldn't tell) I feel that maybe an image either on the cover of her, or of her species would have really helped as the lack of facial description irritated me for the whole story.
That's one of the nitpicks i have with this story, along with the copious amounts of misspellings of her name. The bear lady's name is "Scarletta" but throughout the book i got "Scaretta" "Scarltta" "Scartlet" basically every incorrect variation under the sun. Not a big deal, but it really reminds you that this is a self published book.
The story in itself is in two parts. The first part, and the long climax. So the first part of the book was pretty cute. I think the sex scene came a LITTLE too early and should have come later, but overall the romance between the two was very natural and was quite cute. That's not the issue i have with the book.
The issue i have with the book is the climax. The books suddenly jumps from a cute slice of life romance between the bear lady and the guy, to a huge ass battle book with viscera everywhere, heads exploding, and blood galore. It felt like the author wanted to tell a romance story with like, a romance amongst the bloodshed, but that wasn't the case as the romance already happened, and this was sort of an afterthought. By no means can a story not work that does this. A great example of a human/anthro romance done with this idea is "Transmission Lost". It has loads of violence, but also romance between the two protagonists. But it works because that's the setting and the world. the violence was throughout the book, so when battles appear, it's just part of the story.
For the whole story we're fed ideas over how bad Scarletta's mother is, and, she doesn't really get a whole lot of screentime when she finally DOES show up. it just becomes this gigantic battle and turns into a completely different book. For what it's worth, i really enjoyed everything up until the climax and the big battle. Once that happened, it became a completely different book and lost me.
It's a shame because i really wanted to adore this book. Unfortunately, it just became....decent. And without spoilers, i'll just say, the epilogue was nonsense and made me roll my eyes. The author missed the point and tried to make a stupidly saccharinely sweet ending to a climax that created such tonal whiplash, my neck hurts.
All in all, the characters were fine and well developed, it just took a very sharp turn into violence that it should not have done. This story would have benefited more from a "Turning Red" or "Encanto" sort of generational trauma resolution rather than a disgusting gore fest that came out of nowhere.
Unfortunate. 2.5 out of 5 rounded up to a 3.
Short version of the story, this older human guy's wife dies and goes to an ice planet as a job to monitor the planet. sort of a "i'll work here until i die because i'm sad" kind of vibe. there he meets a bear lady and she falls in love with him and tries to coax him out of his depression and back to enjoying life.
Content warning: This is a romance novel, so YES there are indeed graphic sex scenes in here, in case that's a thing you can't handle. There is also copious amounts of violence.
Ah yes. the violence. you see, the bear lady is part of a tribe and she ran away, so the tribe is after her. but i'll get into the violence in a minute.
So, right of the bat, i'll say one of the biggest irks i had with this book was the main bear girl's description. I couldn't QUITE in my mind's eye see what she looked like. I got SOME idea, but especially when it came to her face, i couldn't figure out what she looked like. were we talking Human ish face? Bear face? some kind of hybrid like Frenni Fazclaire? They never really described her face that well (and yes, i went back several times when they described her and i couldn't tell) I feel that maybe an image either on the cover of her, or of her species would have really helped as the lack of facial description irritated me for the whole story.
That's one of the nitpicks i have with this story, along with the copious amounts of misspellings of her name. The bear lady's name is "Scarletta" but throughout the book i got "Scaretta" "Scarltta" "Scartlet" basically every incorrect variation under the sun. Not a big deal, but it really reminds you that this is a self published book.
The story in itself is in two parts. The first part, and the long climax. So the first part of the book was pretty cute. I think the sex scene came a LITTLE too early and should have come later, but overall the romance between the two was very natural and was quite cute. That's not the issue i have with the book.
The issue i have with the book is the climax. The books suddenly jumps from a cute slice of life romance between the bear lady and the guy, to a huge ass battle book with viscera everywhere, heads exploding, and blood galore. It felt like the author wanted to tell a romance story with like, a romance amongst the bloodshed, but that wasn't the case as the romance already happened, and this was sort of an afterthought. By no means can a story not work that does this. A great example of a human/anthro romance done with this idea is "Transmission Lost". It has loads of violence, but also romance between the two protagonists. But it works because that's the setting and the world. the violence was throughout the book, so when battles appear, it's just part of the story.
For the whole story we're fed ideas over how bad Scarletta's mother is, and, she doesn't really get a whole lot of screentime when she finally DOES show up. it just becomes this gigantic battle and turns into a completely different book. For what it's worth, i really enjoyed everything up until the climax and the big battle. Once that happened, it became a completely different book and lost me.
It's a shame because i really wanted to adore this book. Unfortunately, it just became....decent. And without spoilers, i'll just say, the epilogue was nonsense and made me roll my eyes. The author missed the point and tried to make a stupidly saccharinely sweet ending to a climax that created such tonal whiplash, my neck hurts.
All in all, the characters were fine and well developed, it just took a very sharp turn into violence that it should not have done. This story would have benefited more from a "Turning Red" or "Encanto" sort of generational trauma resolution rather than a disgusting gore fest that came out of nowhere.
Unfortunate. 2.5 out of 5 rounded up to a 3.
June 9, 2024
Iced Hearts is the story of two people who find a home in each other. After Samuel's wife of many years dies, he goes off to a backwater moon to die quietly. There he finds Scarletra, a three meter tall bearlike woman who has run from home and gone into hiding from her mother and her tribes abusive treatment. Samuel isn't ready to love again, but Scarletra's soft affection coaxes him out.
The story contains an age gap with an older MMC and younger FMC. A traumatized warrior FMC who wants to put down her sword and just be cuddly. The first 75% of the book is the story of them growing closer and building their relationship. The last 25% is full of violent action as external forces try to rip them apart.
I enjoyed the book and loved Scarletra's cheery, cuddly, and curious demeanor. She contrasts with Samuel's more closed off demeanor. The couple has a bit of a grumpy and sunshine dynamic.
I recommend this book to any romance fan, particularly one looking for books with a non-human FMC.
The story contains an age gap with an older MMC and younger FMC. A traumatized warrior FMC who wants to put down her sword and just be cuddly. The first 75% of the book is the story of them growing closer and building their relationship. The last 25% is full of violent action as external forces try to rip them apart.
I enjoyed the book and loved Scarletra's cheery, cuddly, and curious demeanor. She contrasts with Samuel's more closed off demeanor. The couple has a bit of a grumpy and sunshine dynamic.
I recommend this book to any romance fan, particularly one looking for books with a non-human FMC.
November 7, 2025
Ah, mens' romance. Do you like stilted, clunky, repetitive prose? Do you prefer characters with zero development and one dimension? Are you into world building that insults your intelligence by refusing to make even a vague gesture towards plausibility or scientific coherence? Most of all, do you enjoy sex scenes so adolescently cringe you experience full-body physical pain just by reading them? If so, you will find this pretty average representative of the genre meets your requirements completely.
November 15, 2025
I’m convinced that a hug from Scarletra could fix all of my problems.
This was a fun book with a super-cute romance plotline. It did start off a bit rough at first, with the initial sex scene being a bit awkward to read because the MCs weren’t able to communicate verbally. The character development and action that came afterwards was great. I adored the setting and the overall comforting atmosphere of the character interactions. It would have been even better if it was edited a bit more.
This was a fun book with a super-cute romance plotline. It did start off a bit rough at first, with the initial sex scene being a bit awkward to read because the MCs weren’t able to communicate verbally. The character development and action that came afterwards was great. I adored the setting and the overall comforting atmosphere of the character interactions. It would have been even better if it was edited a bit more.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews