Book 707: Arctic Wild (Frozen Hearts #2) – Annabeth Albert

I am rapidly running out of Annabeth Albert novels to read. Probably not as fast as I think, she has a few newer series and standalone novels, but I really do feel like I’m running out of the ones I would probably prefer.

Arctic Wild finds us back in the Alaskan wilderness, this time with Toby, an indigenous Alaska Native who works as a pilot with Griffin from Arctic Sun, and hotshot New York attorney Reuben. Reuben and his friends were supposed to go on a private Alaskan tour, but his friends back out and that leaves Reuben and Toby alone for the trip and the simmer starts to build immediately.

The major crisis in this book happens after Reuben and Toby’s plane crashes in the wilderness and they’re rescued. Yes, you read that right. The plane crash isn’t even the major crisis in the romance genre novel, it was the lead up to the major crisis of the novel which is much more internal. But the plane crisis crash does give us a glimpse of the rescuers, one of which is the protagonist of Arctic Heat.

“Toby didn’t like how warm the unexpected praise made him. Pride was one thing, but the last thing he needed was an attraction to Mr. Hot-Older-and-Unattainable, who was already grumpy and probably wouldn’t appreciate his interest.” (Loc. 360)

Toby’s upbringing from his indigenous heritage, Alaskan fear/distrust of outsiders, and his dad’s hyper-emphasis on self-sufficiency and never asking for help, causes the major drama in this story. Reuben not only wants to help Toby after falling for him during the trip, but he has more than the means to be able to do so. He’s decided he needs a break from his NYC life so brings his daughter, Amelia (who plays Space Villager from Albert’s #gaymers series), out to Alaska and they stay the summer, and he invites Toby to stay with him while he recuperates.

“The scenery was unlike anything he’d seen before, and he’d seldom felt so small and insignificant as he did when confronted with the vastness of the landscape. He was more used to feeling like the gear in the center of a machine, everything else rotating around him. These sensations of having shrunk and being a speck in time compared to eons of ice were more than a little disconcerting, but also riveting at the same time.” (Loc. 440)

Albert, just as I mentioned in my Arctic Sun response, did a wonderful job of making Alaska one of the main characters. The way she writes about it, the grandiosity and the beauty really provided a wonderful setting for the story. I was a little disappointed that both this and the last one ended before winter, but I’ve since read Arctic Wild which mostly takes place in an Alaskan winter which was a great change of pace!

I continued to laugh uproariously at Albert’s humor and her characters. She does a wonderful job of having them put their foot in their mouth or adding the perfect levity in a really tense scene. She does it better than any of the other MM romance authors I’ve read. I honestly can’t think of a close second.

“‘Stop making yourself sound ancient. I get it, you’re older than me, but you are undoubtedly aware that you’ve got the whole silver bear thing going on.’ Clearly the icy water had seeped inside his waders, frozen his brain cells because he’d just said silver bear aloud.” (Loc. 546)

“You arrive looking like walking suit porn and no Fifty Shades of Reuben in your repertoire?” (Loc. 989)

And her humor was of course balanced by the sticky-sweet swoon-worthy moments of the story. Sure, it’s gotten a bit rote by this point, (I’m like 20 books into this streak, it can’t all be new again.) but unlike some authors that I’ve read multiple books from she finds new way of showing the heartbreak. Sometimes they make me roll my eyes, but do I expect less? Not really. Take this for example:

“Was this what love felt like? Like his left arm had been removed, like something had hollowed him out, left him empty and wanting and unable to even reach for what he needed most. If this misery was love, he wasn’t sure he wanted any part of it.” (Loc. 3,917)

Cliché? Yes. Sappy? Yes. Eye roll worthy? Pretty much. But did I still swoon a little bit and probably say “aww” out lout like the sappy cliché-loving eye-roll drama queen I am when I read these things? Obviously.

The biggest problem I had with this book was with, I’m assuming, the publishers and the lack of a thorough proofread/copy edit. I don’t know of Carina Press just stopped doing this or if it was a one-off mistake, but this had significantly more errors (formatting, grammar, missing words, etc.) than Walker’s self-published novels that I was really worried about when I liked them. I stopped keeping track after I got into double digits because of the disappointment.

Recommendation: What more can I say? Annabeth Albert is serving me fantasies/stories/thoughts that I didn’t even know I wanted. This was a beautifully written MM romance novel with characters I hadn’t read previously in a wonderfully majestic location. Add in that her stories keep getting better at least in the order I seem to be reading them and I am sold. I feel like I need to read her backlog before I start on her newer stuff to make sure I save what I hope are even better ones for last. Frozen Hearts, as a series, ranks above both Portland Heat and #gaymers, but I’m not quite sure how it compares to Out of Uniform yet, I have a few more to go in that series.

Other Books in Frozen Hearts

• Arctic Sun (#1)
• Arctic Wild (#3)

Opening Line: “‘What do you mean she’s not coming?’ Reuben tried to catch his breath after the long dash from the security checkpoint to the gate for his flight.”

Closing Line: “And now the only thing he needed was this man, this moment, this future stretching out before them.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read,)

Additional Quotes from Arctic Wild
“This is the family company that Vale’s kid’s boyfriend works for.” (Loc. 68) [Reference to River from Arctic Sun.]

“He supposed some people would call the guy a silver fox—older, distinguished face, well-trimmed facial scruff and full head of silver-tinged hair—but silver bear might be more accurate, given his height, broad shoulders, and overall bulk. Older didn’t usually do it for Toby, but he had to admit the guy was hot in that aging-movie-star, rich-dude sort of way.”  (Loc. 120)

“It had been such an idyllic summer in so many ways—working all day until he was sweaty and sore, then hanging out with other young people on the beach late into the night, the last summer he’d been truly free. I want that again. Not that he wanted to fuck around or to work construction, but that feeling, both being useful and free at the same time, was something he hadn’t even realized he missed. But now that he thought about it, he missed that wide-open sensation, the future stretching endlessly in front of him, all possibilities open. He’d had that at camp too—arriving as the city-bound scholarship kid whose most intimate experience with nature was a nearby city park that was more concrete than grass, eyes wide, everything a new experience.” (Loc. 913)

“‘I’m going to be a vlogger.’ This was news to Reuben, but then last time they’d talked jobs, she’d wanted to be a mermaid and had been crushed to learn that wasn’t a career option. He felt honor bound to reply, ‘You’re still going to college. Videos might be hot now, but there’s no long-term job security in them.'” (Loc. 1,661)

“He got it now, why people collected snapshots and souvenirs—trying to hold onto something so precious it couldn’t even be named. And it was probably a losing bid against the frailty of memory, but sometimes one simply had to try, had to have something to take away from a perfect moment.” (Loc. 2,821)

“Had Reuben known that fucking might have that effect on Toby, he would have suggested it sooner. He didn’t need fucking but couldn’t deny really liking the act, liking the closeness and intimacy of it. And there was also something nice about having waited, about having the weeks of friendship and affection to draw on, making the experience that much deeper and richer. And hotter. Reuben simply couldn’t remember hotter sex, and definitely couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone double. The second orgasm had hurt in the best way possible, leaving him a pile of singed nerve endings and little else. But now, restored by sleep, his body surged with the sort of energy only sex like that could provide.” (Loc. 3,327)

“It hadn’t escaped his notice that nothing she’d listed had to do with his money or status or even his time. It had to do with energy. The effort he’d put into their relationship this summer. She needed his presence.” (Loc. 3,830)

“See where this connection they’d found led. It felt a bit like hiking an unfamiliar trail without a map or compass, but he was working on feeling excited, not dwelling on all the ways this could still go wrong. After all, some trails led to spectacular places, and he’d never know if they didn’t try.” (Loc. 4,307)

“‘You are a good parent.’ Despite all their differences, Reuben didn’t doubt that she cared. ‘But part of parenting is learning to parent the kid we actually have, not the one we think we should have.'” (Loc. 4,340)