Just a Girl In a Frozen World

Published:  December 11th, 2012

Greta and the Goblin King (Mylena Chronicles # 1)

By: Chloe Jacobs

Entangled Teen

ISBN-13: 9781620610022

While trying to save her brother from a witch’s fire four years ago, Greta was thrown in herself, falling through a portal to Mylena, a dangerous world where humans are the enemy and every ogre, ghoul, and goblin has a dark side that comes out with the eclipse. 

To survive, Greta has hidden her humanity and taken the job of bounty hunter—and she’s good at what she does. So good, she’s caught the attention of Mylena’s young goblin king, the darkly enticing Isaac, who invades her dreams and undermines her will to escape. 

But Greta’s not the only one looking to get out of Mylena. An ancient evil knows she’s the key to opening the portal, and with the next eclipse mere days away, every bloodthirsty creature in the realm is after her—including Isaac. If Greta fails, she and the lost boys of Mylena will die. If she succeeds, no world will be safe from what follows her back...

Review

     Greta has been living in Mylena for the past four years, working as a bounty hunter and trying to fit in with the locals.  But she never will, because Greta is forced to hide the fact that she is human due to the complete and total hatred of her race by all the people of Mylena.  But she has drawn the attention Isaac, the young Goblin King, who is determined to have Greta for his own and invades her dreams every night using his powers.  When Greta's identity is exposed and her mentor murdered, she is forced to go on the run from other bounty hunters looking to collect the price on her head.  Also, she just may be the key to opening an escape portal for the bloodthirsty Agramon, the demon who destroyed Mylena the last time he was loose.  Banding together with a hidden group of human boys, Greta is determined to rescue those of her race and send them home again.  But can she stay alive long enough to accomplish it?  This was different from anything that I had read before, with main supernatural characters being goblins, sprites and other beings instead of the requisite vampires/werewolves.  That alone made me want to read it.  But adding in the elements of romance and adventure definitely helped.  I enjoyed the characterization of Greta, as a strong female heroine who has rolled with the punches and done what was necessary to survive.  The whole romance with Isaac just didn't appeal to me though.  The fact that he was pretty much stalking her in her dreams (*cough*FreddyKrueger*cough*)  was creepy to me and not a basis for romance.  Not to mention that he expresses serious distaste for her entire species and makes a point of being willing to overlook that she happens to be human.  And he spends the whole entire book lying about why she's being hunted and whether he knew about Agramon's human slaves.   The interactions with the Lost Boys (a.k.a the other humans) were sweet but realistic.  Jacob, the littlest one was meant to be cute but basically annoyed me and took time away from the main plot.  Wyatt was definitely a major contender for Greta's romantic interest, but as usual the stupid supernatural stalker won that battle.  I was surprised at the ending, but felt that it wasn't a good enough cliffhanger to keep me going as a reader.  Overall, a disappointment and mostly mediocre book that I had hoped would be great.

VERDICT:  2.5/5  Stars

* I received an Advanced Reading E-book Copy from the publisher, via NetGalley. No money or favors were exchanged for this review. This book was published December 11th, 2012.*