Stolen Ice Bride

Stolen Brides of the Fae #5

by Angela J. Ford

When spring breaks the unforgiving grip of winter, the mages arrive to steal a bride. . .

Solvay is known for her talents with mixing potions but she hides a treacherous power. She’s avoided the watchful eyes of the mages until now. . .

When Solvayh is chosen as a bride for the mage king, she’s terrified he’ll discover her secret and use it to bring war to the northern lands.

To protect the people she flees only to fall into the hands of a ruthless ice lord. He intends to use her as a hostage to secure peace between the mages and ice lords.

As Solvay travels into the heart of the mountains with the ice lord, she discovers there’s more to him than his savage ways.

But even love can’t change the course of fate. To prevent a war, she’ll sacrifice herself to save the man she loves. . .

This is the fifth installment of STOLEN BRIDES OF THE FAE, a series of stand-alone short novels written by various romantic fantasy authors who share a passion for fantastical love stories.

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Fae, Fantasy Romance, Magic, Novella, Romantasy

130 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 4, 2021

About the author

Angela J. Ford is a bestselling fantasy romance author who writes high-stakes epic fantasy and swoon-worthy fantasy romance novels filled with atmospheric worlds, diverse characters, and satisfying happily ever afters. Her stories feature fast-paced plots, rich descriptions, edge-of-your-seat suspense, and enchanting magic, often with a musical twist. With over 30 published books, Angela's imaginative storytelling has captured the hearts of fantasy romance readers worldwide. As an avid reader herself, Angela can often be found with her nose in a book.

Visit her website (angelajford.com) for signed hardcovers, exclusive book boxes and luxe bookish candles.

Reviews

[Jasmine · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick and easy read. It had nice world building and I enjoyed the two main characters. I just wish there was more!

[High Furby · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short story is beautiful ✨
I'm a sucker for winter scenarios, blonde fae lords, Nordic mythology references and SOMETHING ELSE I would not say because it would be a major spoiler 🤭...
I'll just say I loved every trope this book has to offer 💙❄️

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Same old problem as the other books in the series. And this one is the shortest yet. It is just hard to really love a couple when the love is just there suddenly. These are fun little snippets, but I would prefer if they didn't try to cram an entire story into the snippet. Like only show a quarter of the story like a prequel instead of trying to fit this whole epic fantasy into 100 pages.

It just makes me sad because I am intrigued by this story. I like the whole apothecary side of it and I wish we got more of that, but everything just went at a breakneck speed. The romance just wasn't there for me and it was hard to care about people that I felt like I hardly knew.

The best thing about this book was her becoming a dragon. That was the bomb.com and I wanted more of that! I just wasn't in love with the characters but I felt like I could be. It is useful to read these though and get an idea of the different writers styles and decide if I want to read some of their books. I have definitely been introduced to new authors. I just wish some of these books had been turned into actual books or series instead of these short novellas. Or that the novellas were simple short stories instead of story lines that need hundreds of pages.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the world building and creativity here!

All of these in the series are fairly short so I guess the endings and romance has to be rushed but this one seemed a little extra along those lines than the others. There was a bit of disconnection between elements and simplistic writing sometimes but I did enjoy this one, especially in how distinct of a story from the others in the series.

Rounded to 4 ⭐️

[Thindbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

*This e-arc was sent to me by the publisher to give an honest review in return*

This was such a greatly written short novel. It's about a woman named Solvayh who is supposed to be married off to the mage king but runs away only to be captured by the ice lord only to realize that there is more to him she didn't know about. This is book five of the Stolen Brides of the Fae series but could be read as a standalone. This is my first book from the series and I was not disappointed. I enjoyed the writing of this book and enjoyed the fast pacing. Usually, I'm not a huge fan of fast pacing for fantasy novels but it suited for this book. I thought that the world in this story was unique as I haven't read any books that feature ice lords. I also enjoyed the setting of this book which sounds so beautiful. I wasn't disappointed with the writing at all!

I enjoyed the characters in this book which is from the point of view of Solvayh. She was a brave and strong character who also has a lot of secrets that no one knows. I enjoyed her character development in this book and seeing her reveal her secrets to Ayden, the ice lord. I also enjoyed Ayden who is a ruthless side character but very caring. There weren't many other characters in this book that were featured and from what I can remember only Solvayh and Ayden had the most dialogue in this book. I wish there were more characters in this book just because I also enjoy reading about the side characters as they can bring in many conflicts into the story. Also, the trope of this romance was enemies to lovers which I enjoyed as it's one of my favorite tropes.

The ending was well done for this novel and I wasn't disappointed. Overall this book was well written and I didn't have any problems with it except that I wish there were more side characters in this book. I will for sure be reading Angela's other books like Music of the Night which I also heard is very good and the other books in the series. I recommend this book to fans who love enemies to lovers romance and forced marriage.

[Tara Grayce · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an icy, Viking-inspired take on fae, fae romance, and the stolen brides theme. This one features a doubly-stolen bride who has a secret of her own that could save or doom them all.

I loved the interesting world. It is rare to see fae in a mountainous, far north world like this one, and I really enjoyed the glimpse at this storyworld.

This was is clean except for some kissing. The bride is more "stolen" than some of the other brides in this collection.

[The FountainPenDiva, Old school geek chick and lover of teddy bears · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first Angela J. Ford novel. It was enjoyable overall. Yes, the cover grabbed me and the story was much more adventurous than romantic. The relationship between Solvay and Ayden seemed rushed. I really didn't feel the attraction between them and honestly, this deserves a longer book. There was also a weird naming glitch - King Arden became King Adler which threw me off. For all of this, I definitely plan to check out more of this author's work.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was kind of weird. The characterization was there, especially for a short length work, but I didn't really understand the magical elements. All in all, I'd put this firmly in the middle of all the other works of this series. :)

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.4 stars. Really good plot but it was really shallow. I think this could be an amazing book if it were actually done a little bit more in depth. But I liked it. Going to look at other books from this author. Maybe she has longer books that are better?

[Abigail Harris]

*Note: I read this series however I do not personally recommend it due to magic.

Kinda jumpy for me. The romantic content was okay from what I remember.

[m. · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 STARS

I don't really understand why the average rating for this one is considerably lower than the others. I really enjoyed it!! It was well-written and I liked Solvay and Ayden a lot, their love story worked really well as a novella-length book. It maybe could've been ever-so-slightly longer but overall, I enjoyed myself so that's all that matters!

[Jaye Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED the setting of this one and Ayden is ADORABLE. 🥰😄

[Ariel Osborne · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I’d known there was no sex in this book I wouldn’t have read it 🙄

[Kayla Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short, cute story. Angela j ford does a good job at writing these stories, the world building and stories are creative and interesting.

[hea booktubes · Rating 1 out of 5]

There was no emotional development, it was weird. Just “oh, I love you.” And I’m a fan of instalove, but definitely not a fan of this writing. Characters were very two dimensional. No sex.

[Lana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of Solvay, a young woman who is haunted by her fears of having a monster inside her, a darkness of great evil which she must keep subdued for fear of what it would do if unleashed. She currently lives in the small village of Lansing Falls, which is supposedly protected by mages from the ice lords who are kept away in their mountains by a magical barrier. For this protection however the mages demand a tithe be paid and every year they come down from their castle and steal brides in spring and children who possess magic at other times. Solvay feared the day but she was picked by the King of Mages himself and tried to run away but instead was captured and kidnapped by an ice lord who wanted to use her as leverage to open up trade routes with Lansing Falls as his people were dying from starvation. During their trip up the Ethan mountains to Ayden's home, the palace of Val Ether they start warming up to one another as Solvay realises that being an ice lord does not mean one is a savage barbarian. She sees kindness and care at the hands of Ayden, and she discloses her fear of being a monster to him yet he never waivers in his faith in her. The man was full of legends, stories of battles and hope whilst she was full of mystery. Seems the mages had come for her because she had a power they sought, the ability to rule all but she was damned if she would allow them to use her darkness against the people. Ayden filled her with hope when he told her she had the power to choose who to become and so she did! And what she became was glorious! A story of hope and a beautiful romance between two people who were just right for one another. The descriptive narrative in the story is as usual breath taking in its beauty drawing us into the ice clad mountains and all the creatures dwelling therein as is the style of Ms. Ford which I so enjoy reading.

[LaShunda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast paced

A quick fast paced read. There is so much to dive into in this quick tale. Almost any party of it could become its own full story. This is my first time reading this author and I am curious to read more.

[Stephanie BwaBwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved kicking off the year with this sweet romance. Ayden is 🤤. I love this budding world of Nomadia, and adore some of the plot twists. Not to mention the epic, fun elements like golems and giants. I mean, come on! Fodder for the fantasy fanatics. Enjoyed this read in one sitting. 💜🌟

[Shia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this! I wish it wasn’t a novella and that we got more of the adventure and their romance and her discovery of being an ice dragon!

[Tiffany (Bluestocking) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting concept that actually had a good start, however, the story wasn’t well executed. The magic made no sense and the romance was rushed, whereas, the plot dragged.

Content: Clean, kissing

[Noonecansinkmyship (Tissa) · Rating 5 out of 5]

That was an excellent read. Definitely a favorite in the series.

[Coco.V]

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[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This kept me reading and entertained on a boring sick day. It was written well and had a nice story. A bit different from the others and I enjoyed that. This is young adult. 15 and up

[Amber · Rating 2 out of 5]

I give this book two stars since I was actually able to finish it, which is more than I can say for many self-published fantasy books that I've started to read but weren't worth torturing myself to complete.

Stolen Brides of the Fae is one of those marketing endeavors where multiple authors join together to create a series of works, each by a different author, revolving around a common theme. Assuming readers are interested in the basic premise, readers get to explore a variety of works revolving around a theme that they enjoy, and authors get exposure to readers who otherwise might not hear of them.

Unfortunately, depending on the series, some of these have a tendency to feel very rushed and hastily-written, and this is one of those: both the series overall and this particular book.

In consideration of the fact that authors are real people with feelings, I will mention that I do, genuinely, appreciate the presence of a main character (FMC) in this book who is a POC. Fantasy in general, and somehow self-published romantic fantasy in particular seem to be extremely white-washed, and as someone who enjoys diversity and learning about different cultures, I appreciate reading about diverse characters and worlds.

I'll also add that the premise about the FMC thinking that she is a monster and needing to learn that the part of herself she thinks "monstrous" is not something to shrink away from but a gift to embrace is not necessarily a bad premise or theme. Actually, it's a very good theme and potentially could have been the starting point for some very deep psychological exploration.

The problem is just that absolutely everything in this book needs to be more developed.

Basically, the main plot can be summarized as follows:


FMC believes she's a monster.
An Ice Lord (MMC) abducts her.
She think she has to escape him.
She changes her mind and doesn't want to escape him.
He’s a mage, and that frightens her.
She changes her mind. He’s a good man even though he is a mage and abducted her.
She decides to escape his home and turn myself in to the mages she was trying to escape from in the first place. (Why? I can't recall.)
She realizes she's not a monster, she's an ice dragon.
Icy mountain wilderness in the middle of winter is neither dangerous nor frightening.
There's a villain.
The FMC believes the villain is going to change his ways and meekly give up his kingdom just because she tells him to.
Fighting is swell! And beautiful!
But not too much fighting, so the FMC magically banishes all the monsters that just appeared a mere two paragraphs ago.
FMC accidentally knocked the villain over a cliff with my tail, OOPS, but it's okay because now she can have her HEA with the Ice Lord who abducted her.

Sorry, but this is not much of an exaggeration. Everything in the relationship was way too fast to be realistic; the shift from “I want to escape you!” to “I don’t want to escape you!” and “You’re scary!” to “I’m not scared of you, you’re a good man!” happened with about the same rapidity as above. It's not that having the FMC shift from initially being afraid of the MMC to revising her opinion and realizing he is a good man isn't a valid plot point that can reasonably happen in a romance novel, and does all the time. Actually, that exact tension is what a lot of romance novels are about. (c.f. Pride and Prejudice.) But it needed to be developed enough for it to feel realistic and not give readers emotional whiplash from the FMC changing her feelings completely in the blink of an eye.

And then there was the fight scene. Monsters and creatures appeared and disappeared out of nowhere without it being clear if they were real or not or that they were (apparently) participating in the fight. Then the heroine in her dragon form was like, “I’m gonna banish y’all now,” and that happened apparently purely because she had that thought in her head. Not only is there no lead-up in which the mechanic by which the day is saved is introduced and planted earlier in the book, so that it makes sense when it appears at the end, but there wasn’t even any kind of mechanism or explanation, it just happened, which is a pretty textbook case of Deus Ex Machina.

(By the way, The Witchwood Knot by Olivia Atwater is a really excellent example of two areas in which Stolen Ice Bride needs improvement: (1) introducing early in the book the mechanics and items by which the tables are suddenly turned and the villainess is defeated, so that it makes sense when they are made use of, AND (2) a very convincingly-done enemies-to-lovers, where the mix of admiration and irritation both characters have for the other as worthy opponents results in a slowly-building tension, so that in the scene where they admit their feelings for each other and their relationship becomes physical, it's the logical and long-awaited release of that tension that was building all along.)

Another complaint is that the heroine felt through the whole novella that she had to suppress her emotions (worryingly, a not-uncommon theme in self-published fantasy romance), but there was no indication of the ways that’s unhealthy and actually makes things worse, nor did she actually act like a woman who suppresses her emotions; she seemed utterly in touch with them and basically rolled with whatever her emotions were without thinking.

Finally, it was also very Lord-of-the-Rings derivative, although it's been a while between reading the book and writing this review, so I don't remember specifically what felt LotR-derivative to me.

Overall, I'll mention again that there were some ideas in this book that weren't necessarily bad ideas, but the book felt hastily-written, like a lot of the Stolen Brides of the Fae books, and not really well thought-out. I hope that the author continues to write books that represent diverse people but that in the future she's able to take the time to thoroughly develop relationship and plot developments in her books so that they feel convincing.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

When the mages arrive to steal a bride, Solvay is chosen by the Mage King. She runs, afraid that her suppressed power will destroy her people, only to get kidnapped by the Ice Lord. Ayden kidnaps Solvay to use her as ransom to save his starving people. Now they need to fight the mages and other threats that lurk close by, while also trying to understand their growing feelings for each other.

I liked the plot, but the execution could have used a little more work. The chemistry between Ayden and Solvay needed to be fleshed out. The dangers they came across were also dealt very quickly.
That being said, the characters were interesting. There was air of mystery around Solvay and it kept me wondering what monstrous being she was hiding within herself.
Ayden was great! Not the typical bad boy, but a gentleman who was trying to do right by his people, but at the same time he knew that the means he was using to get it were wrong. He was torn between his duty to his people and growing affections for Solvay, and I understood that.
I was satisfied with the final outcome of the story. This is another great addition to the series.

[Oana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the idea behind The Stolen Brides series but some of those stories deserved more in my opinion.
Stolen Ice Bride was too short for my taste. The author could have easily added a few more pages to the story, and it would have offered a bit more realistic views upon the romance between the 2 main characters. In such a short time span those two fall so deeply in love that it's almost unreal.
The action was ok, it was developed more that enough in raport with the romance bit and the page number.

[Amber Christiansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thrilling

I loved reading Solvay's story. The plot was thrilling and the romance was sweet. I look forward to reading more from this author.

[Larissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall: 3/5

Plot and themes: 3/5

Characters: 3/5

Writing style: 4/5

Attention-grabbing: 2/5

This is the fifth novella in the Stolen Brides of the Fae series, a collaboration of fantasy romance authors that doesn't have to be read in any specific way. It follows the journey of Solvayh, a young healer hiding from those who would choose to exploit the powers she has been terrified of since she was young. Unfortunately, the Mage King decides that she should be his bride. She's in the middle of running away when an ice fae lord decides to kidnap her to hold as ransom to save his own kingdom.

I didn't really understand the magic in this universe. It may be a part of a greater scheme of magic from other books that I haven't read, but the pacing of it all was hard to follow and difficult to really get into. Part of it could have been how removed the characters were from the actual threats, things kept being mentioned but like we never actually saw them in real-time on the pages so they didn't seem as bad as they were described. The real threats were easily vanquished and that seemed to kind of just lead to the romance.

The characters were likeable, I think Solvayh would have been a lot more interesting in a full-length novel. I would love to hear more about how she was able to support herself while hiding what she thought was so evil about herself. I'm not all that mad at the content of this novella, it was just kind of middle of the road. It probably would've been a lot more enjoyable if there had been more information given.

This review and all my others can be found at: https://aworldshapedbybooks.blogspot....

[Bethany Hoeflich · Rating 3 out of 5]

We start with Solvay, who works as an assistant to an apothocarist? Apothecary person? Person who works at an apothecary? WHATEVER.

Anyway...

In this world, there are mages, who are power-hungry jerkwads who steal women for breeding... and who steal children who show powers so they can abuse the kids until they’re ‘trained.’

Solvay, against her better judgement, shows up at the ‘tithe’, confident she won’t be chosen as a bride.

When she’s picked as a bride for King Jerkwad himself, she nopes out of there like someone poured fire ants into her boots.

And who is ready to kidnap her as she’s fleeing?

An Ice Lord.

One of the ‘Big Bad’. A dude who probably drinks blood and picks his teeth with puppy bones. Oh, so scary.

Except, not so much.

And the MC? Yeah, she’s got a demon under the surface, just waiting to be unleashed.

This story had a lot of potential. I loved the concept and the backstory. The pacing was too fast to the point where I couldn’t catch my breath between the HORRIBLE EVENTS. The romance fell flat for me. I wish there were another hundred pages to really flesh it out, and it wrapped up too quickly. The reveal of what the MC is was fantastic.

A solid three stars.

[Marjorie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The chosen one with hidden powers is a pretty common trope, but this is a very different take on the concept. Two warring factions know she has the power they need, but neither has any idea what it really is. One side wants her as a brood mare, the other is desperate to use her as a bargaining chip. But Solvay is no one's pawn. Something Ayden learns very quickly, but even he has no idea what she is truly capable of. Solvay has spent her life avoiding attachments, but maybe she has finally found one worth making.

Ford has created this huge epic fantasy world, and squeezed it into a novella. The world building, the magic systems, the various peoples and lands and history is all there, but we only get a peek due to the short form. This one takes a lot of imagination to fully realize the breadth of what has been created. I think there is a lot of potential for more stories in this world. It is pretty incredible.

This is an action filled, quest type journey, but primarily character-driven. The main focus is on Solvay's growth, the way she deals with her past trauma, and how she comes to accept who she is. I would have liked to see a bit more of Ayden and their burgeoning relationship but the key bits were there. The ending was epic.