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"Everfrost"
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“You smell delicious.”
Beatrice is just a small town girl from Elkbury. After receiving a prophetic message, she begins to question her place in the whimsically dark realm of Venari. When a band of warriors show up at the Old Dead Oak tavern looking for volunteers to aid them in a quest on behalf of the queen, Beatrice answers the call to arms. Little does she know about the hungry horrors that lie beyond the safety of her small town, that lurk within the notorious forest of Taun Grove, and prowl the mountains of “Everfrost”. Expect a cold and cruel adventure to take shape, and when it does… expect claws, fangs, and deliciousness!
Beatrice is just a small town girl from Elkbury. After receiving a prophetic message, she begins to question her place in the whimsically dark realm of Venari. When a band of warriors show up at the Old Dead Oak tavern looking for volunteers to aid them in a quest on behalf of the queen, Beatrice answers the call to arms. Little does she know about the hungry horrors that lie beyond the safety of her small town, that lurk within the notorious forest of Taun Grove, and prowl the mountains of “Everfrost”. Expect a cold and cruel adventure to take shape, and when it does… expect claws, fangs, and deliciousness!
Readability
“Everfrost” weaves together a handful of character storylines using a third person point of view that is mostly close, but occasionally slips into omniscient. The author stretches the pacing of the story but makes an honest effort to leave no loose ends. The story definitely reads as if the author was flying by the seat of her pants while writing it, and although she shows an understanding of structure, I found her execution to be a bit off balance. One aspect of her writing that kept throwing me off was the sudden shifts in tone.
The early chapters bounce between several points of view spread between three separate groups of characters. I can tell the author really enjoys writing characterization, but I think there’s a point at which the character exposition and/or backstories become overkill when it’s being done for every support/side character. If a character is meant to be a “red shirt” (if only to serve as an example), then I’m fine with that. However, making me read a bunch of fluff about characters that to turn out to be inconsequential to the overall plot is just a waste of time. Maybe fans of the fantasy genre (or escapist fiction in general) may disagree, but I personally don’t need to know the life story of every character in a novel in order for their role in it to have meaning (no matter how big or small). The most important thing is that every character should serve a purpose (whether it be to further the plot or develop the story), and there are definitely some characters in “Everfrost” that I would classify as stodgy extras in this regard.
Speaking of filler, I think the work really could have benefitted from some developmental input. The prose suffers from tautological overwriting, and there are times where the dialogue between characters could have been summed up in a line or two of narration (instead of sharing all the cordial small talk). An early example of bloated dialogue is during the scene where the Queen’s Guard arrives at the Old Dead Oak tavern.
Creativity
One concept I really like about “Everfrost” is the idea of a magical sword being called Absolution. The sword was originally held by a priest, but due to circumstances beyond his control, he is no longer capable of wielding Absolution. Metaphorically this marks the end of his role as a holy man and his ability to “cleanse Venari”, but even after coming to that realization he chooses not to destroy the weapon. It would have been poetic if Absolution turned out to be a means to an end for the priest’s storyline, and I think that was a huge missed opportunity on the author’s part.
The sword is introduced in the prologue, and is mostly forgotten up until the end of the novel – when it’s discovered by the protagonist for no apparent reason other than, “Oh yeah, I should probably do something with that thing.” The sword just kind of arbitrarily chooses a new owner, “…a voice that she’d never heard before, but it felt so familiar.” Good thing the main character just so happened to be in the area and the magical sword was somehow aware of her presence.
Needless to say, the magic in this novel isn’t exactly fleshed out in any rational sense. I will hand it to Yardley - she almost made it through the entire story without using magic as a plot device. I was willing to overlook the haphazard physical logistics that caused a human being to convert into werewolf, but there are a couple things I need to call out - that I believe warranted further explanation. One is the werewolf-spider hybrid, which really didn’t make sense (especially seeing as how Greta’s character also becomes one, even though she was buried in snow and not in a setting that could actually have spiders).
The other magical anomaly that took me out of the story was what I’ve coined, “The Mysterious Red Door of Deus Ex Machina”. Tell me that you’re no longer interested in writing a particular story without telling me you are bored and/or lacking the motivation to finish writing the story. Stick a “magical” door in the middle of a dangerous forest, like a fast-travel waypoint from a video game, so the protagonist can avoid further conflict. How convenient, lol, I wonder why the author didn’t think of incorporating such a device sooner? It certainly would have saved several characters the heartache and tragedy of their adventure, as well as the lives of those who were lost along the way (not to mention my time as the reader, now that I know such a device can exist in this fictional world).
Delivery
Despite introducing a multitude of subplots, the overall narrative of “Everfrost” settles upon the development of Beatrice as the leading character in this story. This is a dark fantasy in the sense that it tries to be both a touching coming-of-age tale (documenting Beatrice’s transformation from “frightened Little Rabbit” into a hero “oozing confidence”), and a schlocky creature feature with violent werewolf transformations alongside copious amounts of gratuitous gore. I suppose if this story was written as a horror, then I could see Beatrice’s character playing the part of “final girl” in this nightmare world of Venari, but the tone of the story was not set up that way.
The story starts off like a traditional fantasy adventure, but then becomes increasingly campy - with all the gore and the creature feature horror. The shock value and graphic detail of gore feels really forced, like a poorly executed A24 rendition of a fairy tale. The first instance where the story felt offbeat was the scene where Tolf’s character is decapitated by terrorists (I mean the “Queen’s Guard”, aka the good guys?) on some trumped-up charges. The situation just gets glossed over by the whole town, and nobody so much as bats an eye at it. How the hell was Beatrice’s “father” proud of his daughter’s decision to join such a group?
Side note: there are four decapitations in this novel (and not a single, “there can be only one,” was ever uttered).
There are several moments throughout the novel that I think were meant to be touching or sentimental that just missed the mark, but I damn near lost my shit during the scene where Beatrice mourns the recent loss of her friend Newt. She knelt down by his body, cried, and told him he was a warrior who saved her life, as she grieved over his disgusting mace smashed face (shout out to Cannibal Corpse) while holding his hand.
“Newt’s face was ruined. His jaw hung at an odd angle, missing teeth and sporting half of a severed tongue. One eye hung from its socket, surrounded by a mess of churned up flesh. The other eye was missing completely, the empty hole staring an accusation at Beatrice.”
Forgive my pun, but that whole situation struck me as absolutely ridiculous. I was trying to picture what it must have looked like to see Beatrice’s character being all touchy feely with the mangled corpse of her friend, while sounding all sentimental instead of being in a state of shock.
“Everfrost” weaves together a handful of character storylines using a third person point of view that is mostly close, but occasionally slips into omniscient. The author stretches the pacing of the story but makes an honest effort to leave no loose ends. The story definitely reads as if the author was flying by the seat of her pants while writing it, and although she shows an understanding of structure, I found her execution to be a bit off balance. One aspect of her writing that kept throwing me off was the sudden shifts in tone.
The early chapters bounce between several points of view spread between three separate groups of characters. I can tell the author really enjoys writing characterization, but I think there’s a point at which the character exposition and/or backstories become overkill when it’s being done for every support/side character. If a character is meant to be a “red shirt” (if only to serve as an example), then I’m fine with that. However, making me read a bunch of fluff about characters that to turn out to be inconsequential to the overall plot is just a waste of time. Maybe fans of the fantasy genre (or escapist fiction in general) may disagree, but I personally don’t need to know the life story of every character in a novel in order for their role in it to have meaning (no matter how big or small). The most important thing is that every character should serve a purpose (whether it be to further the plot or develop the story), and there are definitely some characters in “Everfrost” that I would classify as stodgy extras in this regard.
Speaking of filler, I think the work really could have benefitted from some developmental input. The prose suffers from tautological overwriting, and there are times where the dialogue between characters could have been summed up in a line or two of narration (instead of sharing all the cordial small talk). An early example of bloated dialogue is during the scene where the Queen’s Guard arrives at the Old Dead Oak tavern.
Creativity
One concept I really like about “Everfrost” is the idea of a magical sword being called Absolution. The sword was originally held by a priest, but due to circumstances beyond his control, he is no longer capable of wielding Absolution. Metaphorically this marks the end of his role as a holy man and his ability to “cleanse Venari”, but even after coming to that realization he chooses not to destroy the weapon. It would have been poetic if Absolution turned out to be a means to an end for the priest’s storyline, and I think that was a huge missed opportunity on the author’s part.
The sword is introduced in the prologue, and is mostly forgotten up until the end of the novel – when it’s discovered by the protagonist for no apparent reason other than, “Oh yeah, I should probably do something with that thing.” The sword just kind of arbitrarily chooses a new owner, “…a voice that she’d never heard before, but it felt so familiar.” Good thing the main character just so happened to be in the area and the magical sword was somehow aware of her presence.
Needless to say, the magic in this novel isn’t exactly fleshed out in any rational sense. I will hand it to Yardley - she almost made it through the entire story without using magic as a plot device. I was willing to overlook the haphazard physical logistics that caused a human being to convert into werewolf, but there are a couple things I need to call out - that I believe warranted further explanation. One is the werewolf-spider hybrid, which really didn’t make sense (especially seeing as how Greta’s character also becomes one, even though she was buried in snow and not in a setting that could actually have spiders).
The other magical anomaly that took me out of the story was what I’ve coined, “The Mysterious Red Door of Deus Ex Machina”. Tell me that you’re no longer interested in writing a particular story without telling me you are bored and/or lacking the motivation to finish writing the story. Stick a “magical” door in the middle of a dangerous forest, like a fast-travel waypoint from a video game, so the protagonist can avoid further conflict. How convenient, lol, I wonder why the author didn’t think of incorporating such a device sooner? It certainly would have saved several characters the heartache and tragedy of their adventure, as well as the lives of those who were lost along the way (not to mention my time as the reader, now that I know such a device can exist in this fictional world).
Delivery
Despite introducing a multitude of subplots, the overall narrative of “Everfrost” settles upon the development of Beatrice as the leading character in this story. This is a dark fantasy in the sense that it tries to be both a touching coming-of-age tale (documenting Beatrice’s transformation from “frightened Little Rabbit” into a hero “oozing confidence”), and a schlocky creature feature with violent werewolf transformations alongside copious amounts of gratuitous gore. I suppose if this story was written as a horror, then I could see Beatrice’s character playing the part of “final girl” in this nightmare world of Venari, but the tone of the story was not set up that way.
The story starts off like a traditional fantasy adventure, but then becomes increasingly campy - with all the gore and the creature feature horror. The shock value and graphic detail of gore feels really forced, like a poorly executed A24 rendition of a fairy tale. The first instance where the story felt offbeat was the scene where Tolf’s character is decapitated by terrorists (I mean the “Queen’s Guard”, aka the good guys?) on some trumped-up charges. The situation just gets glossed over by the whole town, and nobody so much as bats an eye at it. How the hell was Beatrice’s “father” proud of his daughter’s decision to join such a group?
Side note: there are four decapitations in this novel (and not a single, “there can be only one,” was ever uttered).
There are several moments throughout the novel that I think were meant to be touching or sentimental that just missed the mark, but I damn near lost my shit during the scene where Beatrice mourns the recent loss of her friend Newt. She knelt down by his body, cried, and told him he was a warrior who saved her life, as she grieved over his disgusting mace smashed face (shout out to Cannibal Corpse) while holding his hand.
“Newt’s face was ruined. His jaw hung at an odd angle, missing teeth and sporting half of a severed tongue. One eye hung from its socket, surrounded by a mess of churned up flesh. The other eye was missing completely, the empty hole staring an accusation at Beatrice.”
Forgive my pun, but that whole situation struck me as absolutely ridiculous. I was trying to picture what it must have looked like to see Beatrice’s character being all touchy feely with the mangled corpse of her friend, while sounding all sentimental instead of being in a state of shock.
#LFLR Indie Rating: 3.5/10
“Everfrost” is the second novel from a collection of standalone stories set in the world of Venari. I know Lou Yardley is capable of blending fantasy and horror together in an effective way, because I enjoyed her short story “Snuff Fairies”, which she adapted into audio format for her Youtube channel. With “Everfrost”, She tried to lean more into the fantasy genre, but I think she bit off more than she could chew, because Lou clearly just wants to write horror. I think she did a better job at writing short horror that has fantasy elements than she did writing a fantasy epic that includes elements of horror.
“Everfrost” is the second novel from a collection of standalone stories set in the world of Venari. I know Lou Yardley is capable of blending fantasy and horror together in an effective way, because I enjoyed her short story “Snuff Fairies”, which she adapted into audio format for her Youtube channel. With “Everfrost”, She tried to lean more into the fantasy genre, but I think she bit off more than she could chew, because Lou clearly just wants to write horror. I think she did a better job at writing short horror that has fantasy elements than she did writing a fantasy epic that includes elements of horror.
THIS BREAKDOWN IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE #LFLR NETWORK.
