Winter Castle by Alexandra Bel-Robere

[whitelady]

I had to pick this one up because the cover art is the same one as that on this forum. My copy is poor, though, and it practically fell apart in my hands.

Our heroine in this story is Freya, who goes to Norway for a summer job and ends up staying on by accident. However, it was manipulated for her to stay. During that time, she begins to uncover the mystery of her past, a past she did not know existed. The story revolves around events that occurred during WWII and the resolution depended on solving the mystery of some hidden treasure from the war.

Overall, the story was pretty good. I didn't like the fact that our heroine falls in love with a perfect stranger on sight and remains completely faithful to her memory of him. I just felt that romance was rushed. I'd give this a "B+" as well.

[Bellatrix]

I had to pick this one up because the cover art is the same one as that on this forum.

Well that answers my question. I was going to post last week, inquiring of the board owner which novel's cover art he/she used for the homepage picture.

Thanks for your review. Will check to see if my local used bookstore has a copy.

[Penfeather]

Overall, the story was pretty good. I didn't like the fact that our heroine falls in love with a perfect stranger on sight and remains completely faithful to her memory of him. I just felt that romance was rushed. I'd give this a "B+" as well.

I agree with your review. Freya's naïveté seemed a bit forced. I didn't really feel drawn into the romance at all since the love interest character remained behind the scenes for most of the book.

However, the setting is compelling and the author does a good job conveying the atmosphere of the long dark winter in the mountains of Norway over a fjord. Although I don't think the Vikings built castles. But oh well . . .

Does anyone have any information about the author, Alexandra Bel-Robere? The book is copyrighted in the name of Judith Sagarin, which I guess was the author's real name. I can't find any biographical or bibliographical information on either name online. Did she write other books?

[Fortuna]

I did search for more info on either names and found nothing interesting. If anyone who is reading this is interested, there's a used copy of Winter Castle up for sale on Amazon.