3.5 stars. I loved Frozen when I read it last year and I wish I had reread it before going into Stolen because there's a lot I forgot. Stolen picks up right where Frozen left off and it doesn't do much of a recap so it was a little confusing at first but I caught on soon enough. Since I loved Frozen so much I had really high expectations for Stolen and unfortunately I was disappointed. I still enjoyed the story but not as much as I thought I would. The beginning switches between Wes and Nat's POVs and in the beginning there didn't seem to be much going on from Wes' POV so I was much more interested in reading Nat's. The ending is of course the best part. The end had lots of action and twists, though some of which were predictable. I liked the action scenes but I thought they were kind of short and cut off. I wish those scenes were longer and I wished the whole book was longer as well, it would have made it better. I really like the villain in this story (I won't say who it is so I don't spoil anyone, though this was one of the twists that was predictable). The villain was perfect, very cruel and evil and I believed it. Overall I enjoyed it but I recommend rereading Frozen before jumping into Stolen if you haven't read it in a while. ( )

2nd book in series. Takes place a few months after Nat has gone to the other world The Blue as she is the last drakon rydder, and Wes has gone back to the frozen New Vegas in a quest to find his missing sister. Nat has been successful in beating the RSA's drones and so life in the form of plants and birds are starting to return to the icy apocolyptic wastelands.
Wes on the other hand, has had nothing but bad luck as the 2 little people he rescued and the slyph called Liannan have been captured.
Suddenly it all goes pear shaped for Nat too when her drakon is injured by a new weapon and she must return to the frozen world to rescue Liannan without it. Wes & Nat are destined to meet again...
Interesting take on magic being composed of energy from dark matter, and a world where global warming melted the ice caps but caused the seas to rise and plunge the Earth into a frozen wilderness.
Fans of Sarah Haas books will like this one. ( )

This is the second book in the Heart of Dread series. I liked the first book, Frozen, a lot more then this book. Frozen just had such an interesting blend of magic and science fiction and so much potential. This book was a bit boring and it was hard to get engaged in the story.

In this book Nat is fighting for Blue on the back of her Drakon and working with Faix Lazaved (from the Blue) to develop her powers as a drakonryder. Meanwhile Wes is still searching for his sister Eliza and is forced back into service in an effort to get her back. Each are fighting their own battles against the establishment and eventually they collide. The biggest question is where is Eliza Wesson and who is she?

I really enjoyed Frozen and I am not sure why this book didn't have the same appeal to me. There isn't a lot of description throughout so some of the settings were hard to picture. I also just had some trouble engaging with the characters. Nat and Wes are either separate or at odds with each other for vast portions of the book. Faix seems like he could be an interesting character but his character came across as very dry.

The plot was very predictable as well. I figured out who Eliza is fairly early in the book and was disappointed to find out I was right.

The story was okay but didn't really engage me or grab me. I had trouble sitting down to read this because I just found myself absolutely ambivalent about what was going on. This was disappointing because I loved the world created in this series and thought it had a lot of potential. I was really hoping this book would focus more on the Blue and the magic there but it didn’t.

Overall this was an okay book in this series. I didn’t like this book as much as the first book, Frozen. The characters weren’t as engaging as in Frozen and the plot was very predictable. Right now I am undecided as to whether or not I will continue reading this series. I still like the idea of an ice covered post-apocalyptic world where magic blends with tech; but I just felt like the world-building was lacking in this book ( )

Who is Eliza Wesson?

Months after Nat and Wes said good-bye on the shores of the Blue, Nat is learning how to control and use her new power. She and her drakon are the last of their kind—and she’s risked her life for their reunion. When she receives a mysterious distress call, she races to help, soliciting the guidance of her new friend, the beautiful and aloof Faix Lazaved of the Blue.

Still heartbroken over losing Nat, Wes is racing cars on a New Vegas racetrack while his team is scattered and lost. When he finds out that his sister, Eliza, is being held in the golden domes of El Dorado, he does what he’s best at—running to her side—and gambles on luck to see him through one more time.

Magic, romance, and danger collide as Nat and Wes become entangled in a dark new adventure that leads right to the heart of the mystery of their frozen, broken world. They soon discover that the answer to both their quests lies in the same question: Who is Eliza Wesson—what is she capable of, and why was she stolen from her family so long ago?