The Gathering Storm

Today's post is 'The Gathering Storm' by Robin Bridges. It is 386 pages long and is published by Delacorte Press which is an imprint of Random House. This is the first book in "The Katerine Trilogy'. There is a good note about Russian names at the beginning that is very useful and interesting. The intended reader is YA. The cover has a very pretty girl with blonde hair standing in a snowstorm behind her; she is looking the reader with a haunted expression on her face. There be Spoilers Ahead.

Katerina Alexandrovna, Duchess of Oldenburg is noble born in Russia in 1888 and she is cursed. At least that is what she thinks. When she was a child she wished that a frog she saw dead was not and it came back to life. She believes that her power is evil so she must never do that again. With one slip when she bought back her mother's cat she has never done it again. Katiya, as her family calls her, wants to be a doctor. She wants to help people and her father is fully behind her with this dream but her mother just wants to marry her off to the man with the highest title. She goes to a finishing school with other high born girls including two princess from the kingdom of Montenegro but they are two of the main villains in the story with their brother as the other. There are balls, dresses, some fight scenes and two kisses with two different young men. Katiya must choose for herself and be brave enough to go where no one else can or will.

This was not a bad story. I liked many parts of it very much. I think that Katiya has dreams for herself  and that she will not change herself just because of some boy. She is naive which is not surprising for a sixteen year old girl to be. She is smart, like able and believable. The writing is strong with vivid descriptions, dialogue flows and in general not bad. I would have liked it better if the horror in the story was more important. I think that was sacrifice so that more girls would read it and I think that it would have been a better book for having the horror but I am not the author that is just my opinion.

My rating is three Russian stars and 1/2 a zombie. I do not get anything for my review in fact I borrowed this book from my library.