Amber Frost by Suzi Davis

The Lost Magic, Book One

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Grace Lynn Stevenson is an eighteen year old girl who recently moved with her wealthy, but busy parents to a new city. She's popular, pretty and rich - what more could a girl want? But deep down, she's sad, lonely and plagued by nightmares.
When she meets Sebastian Caldwood at her new private school, she's inexplicably drawn to him and his strange tattoos. Sebastian always gets what he wants - he simply has to wish it; but he's fighting his own inner demons, and struggling to remember a past that eludes him. When he remembers that he is much older than he looks, he realizes that he's seen many people live and die, including Grace.
Once Sebastian realizes his true nature and finds what he has been searching for the past hundreds of years, he also realizes that it is now up to him to protect Grace from the dangers that have plagued them throughout eternity.
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I was fully captured by the story and the love. Unlike so many other paranormal/YA romances this felt so real the way they meet and how they slowly develop first a friendship and then a relationship.

Basically I'm just in love with the whole thing, I could fully connect with Gracelynn and I love how easy it is to feel with her as she struggles against this fake high-class life she's forced to live. Sebastian was so much more lovable than the usual "gorgeous" heroes (though I do believe that he's also described as rather easy on the eye), there seems to be more to him and it's not just all about falling head over heels and forgetting about everything else.

My only complaint is that it becomes a bit fuzzy around the lines towards the end, there's so much we suddenly need to know and after a long story that's fully about love and not much else, we're suddenly introduced to an actual element of danger and I'm very curious to read the next book and see where Davis takes them. Furthermore the magic element is a bit too simplistic to my taste, but what can you do?

Amber Frost is Suzi Davis' very first book and she did one hell of a good job. What the cover and the title actually have to do with the story I have no clue, but regardless, the story is great and well worth a read.

My final comment? Now I'm really itching to get myself a tattoo (you've got to read the book to understand ;)

292 pages, epub / published in 2010
Review by Iben Jakobsen, BoB, 2011