Review: Touch of Frost by Jennifer Estep

Touch Of Frost
Book 1 of the Mythos Academy Series

Author: Jennifer Estep
Publisher: Kensington Publishing
Genre: Young Adult
ISBN: 9780758266927
Release Date: 7/26/11
Author's website:  Jennifer Estep

My name is Gwen Frost, and I go to Mythos Academy — a school of myths, magic and warrior whiz kids, where even the lowliest geek knows how to chop off somebody's head with a sword and Logan Quinn, the hottest Spartan guy in school, also happens to be the deadliest.

But lately, things have been weird, even for Mythos. First, mean girl Jasmine Ashton was murdered in the Library of Antiquities. Then, someone stole the Bowl of Tears, a magical artifact that can be used to bring about the second Chaos War. You know, death, destruction and lots of other bad, bad things. Freaky stuff like this goes on all the time at Mythos, but I'm determined to find out who killed Jasmine and why—especially since I should have been the one who died. . .

Let me start of by saying how exciting this new series is!  I'm a fan of Jennifer Estep's Elemental Assassin series and was happy to read and review this book for her.  I haven't been reading a lot of YA recently, but this book made up for all the ones that I didn't read.

Gwen Frost has the ability to touch an item and feel whatever the owner of the item was feeling.  She is able to make a little money on the side finding lost items for some of the students at the academy.  For the most part Gwen keeps to herself.  She is a gypsy and feels out of place among the other students because the majority of them are natural born warriors.   They are wealthy, popular, and turn their noses up at her whenever they get the opportunity.  After a student is mysteriously murdered at the school, Gwen takes it upon herself to find out exactly what happened.  Her deceased mother was a detective and Gwen begins to put clues together.  She ends up enlisting the help of one of the girls at the school that she never got along with and by the end of the book they become friends.  Gwen also friends the bad boy of the school Logan Quinn who just so happens to be a Spartan.  He ends up coming to her rescue several times and there is a natural attraction between the both of them.  Together the 3 of them find out what really happened and Gwen gets the biggest shock of her life when she realizes just how special she truly is.

I loved the feel of this book and felt that the storyline flowed perfectly.  I also loved the mythology elements in the storyline.  I'm a huge fan of Greek and Roman Mythology so it was fun to learn more about that as it was a big part of the academy and the characters lives.  I felt that Gwen's character was very conflicted since she felt as if she was the cause of her mothers death.  She constantly thinks about this several times during the book and I thought it gave the readers more insight into Gwen.  Her mothers absence weighs heavily on her mind and I have a feeling that there is more to that part of the storyline.  Gwen is just like her mom and I feel that she is going to look more into what really happened.  I wouldn't be surprised if her new found friends will help her.  Logan Quinn has his eye on Gwen and I enjoyed the scenes where they were flirting with each other.  I really liked Logan's character the minute he appeared in the book and put him on my Cougar Lovin

list.  I can't wait to read more scenes involving these 2 characters.

I'm giving Touch of Frost a rating of:

I am eagerly awaiting to walk the halls of Mythos Academy again.  I'm looking forward to reading what Gwen has to face next and learning more about her powers.  Touch of Frost was a captivating read and when I got to the end of it I wanted the story to continue.  I had a hard time writing this review because I liked the book so much.  Trust me and give it a read.  You'll know exactly what I mean after you read it.