Lily in the Snow and Other Elemental Tales
Christine E. Schulze

Review brought to you by OBS staff member Annabell

Synopsis:

Jewett ran.

He and the earth carried her, the earth granting a gracious speed, as if it could feel through his arms, the rarity of the gem he held, the urgency of its protection…

Mica Schist, a rock Elemental, has always felt secure in her caves high in the snowy mountains. Protected by her adoptive older brother, Pearson, and befriended by the bats of her cave, it is the only life she has ever known.

Until an outsider, Jewett, an earth Elemental, arrives, illuminating Mica not only to the possibility of a whole new world outside hers, but of a life with the young man who opens that world to her.

When Jewett unmeaningly brings great danger to Mica, her only chance of being saved is to escape with him into the woods he loves so much; it is a dream any girl would have, to flee danger with her newfound love.

But upon entering his world, she realizes how fragile she truly is, why Pearson always seemed too obsessed with protecting her. Jewett’s world, though beautiful, is harmful; no longer connected to her rocks, their security and oneness with her, she finds that the smallest things in his earthern world hurts her. The simple scraping of her skin against the bark of a tree, her falling on the forest floor–even Jewett’s touch. All of these, so harmless to anyone else, make the soft mica crystals covering her from head to toe shed away too easily.

And when an Elemental loses all of her crystals, it can only mean one thing: death.

How can Mica choose between saving her life and saving her new life with Jewett?

Review:

I had been looking forward to reading this book, excited by the elemental aspects to the book but Lily in the Snow offered no winning qualities to me. There isn’t very much I can say about the book because honestly, I couldn’t get through it.

The book ended just as boring as the beginning. The characters were extremely underdeveloped and bland. I could appreciate the new and imaginative world the author was trying to create but the execution failed because of lack of details and good enough backstory to the characters. The plot was barely existent and I often had trouble following along. The pacing was dragged out and the dialogue was just as flat as the plot and made the story predictable. I couldn’t relate to any of the characters because I just couldn’t connect with how the characters in the various stories were acting. There just wasn’t a moment when I was reading that I felt immersed in the story.

Lily in the Snow was just not what I had expected and was too hard to get through to be enjoyable.

I do wish the author the best in the future with her other novels and I hope she is able to find a stronger voice as an author as well as better skill in executing her ideas.