The Snow Queen - Mercedes Lackey

The Snow Queen
Mercedes Lackey
Luna Books
Copyright: 2008
ISBN: 9780373802654

The amazon.com product description:

Aleksia, Queen of the Northern Lights, is mysterious, beautiful and widely known to have a heart of ice. But when she's falsely accused of unleashing evil on nearby villages, she realizes there's an impostor out there far more heartless than she could ever be.

And when a young warrior disappears, Aleksia's powers are needed as never before.

Now, on a journey through a realm of perpetual winter, it will take all her skills, a mother's faith and a little magic to face down an enemy more formidable than any she has ever known…. 

I originally read The Snow Queen way back in 2008 when it first came out in hardcover, and the review to prove it is here. As part of the Five Hundred Kindoms series, this book is something a bit closer to romance than fantasy, at least in that the main characters are all guaranteed to "live happily ever after". And yes, that Traditional ending is perfectly apropriate here. All of the books in this series are based on fairy tales, both European and otherwise.

Based on, but not always the same. Not to mention that Mercedes Lackey has been quite free at mixing up the fairy tales she uses. This one's based around the tales of the Snow Queen, which I have to admit are ones I'm not overly familiar with, but at the same time, the author seems to have mixed in the legends of what appear to be the lapplanders, if my guess is correct. You don't have to know every one of the tales used to enjoy the story though. I don't, although it can be fun to identify where the elements of the story may have originated.

The Snow Queen is several books into the series, and it's somewhat assumed that you'll get some of the subtleties by now, although the basis of The Tradition is explained. Some of the references though are actually to previous books in the series. Not that you'll need to have read all of them, but it helps to have read one or two, especially the first book: The Fairy Godmother.

I've always found Mercedes Lackey's books to be good, fun, light reads. The Snow Queen is no exception to this.