A Bloom In Winter

A Bloom in Winter by J.R. Ward
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I quit the prison camp series, so I think that I am missing a lot of the backstory here, but was able to dive in with this story of Callum and Apex, among other folks.

While this book gets a 0.5 designation in the overall series numbering, I don’t see this as a short story at all. This is a full length story, complete with many parallel storylines. I think the main story is supposed to be Callum and Apex, but they were definitely overshadowed by the plot line of building animosity against the king, a budding romance between a disowned daughter and a reckless misfit, and even the butler’s guest appearance.

Callum and Apex apparently have a broken past, involving sexual abuse (warning - this book is DARK), and Callum ran away from Apex rather than facing his potential future. They end up “accidentally” running into one another while stranded in a blizzard but it goes much less sexily than you’d want it to. Their romance was very… painful. A lot of hurt feelings, misunderstandings, emotional baggage and all from a romance that maybe never was? Like I said, the Mayhem (probably spelled not like that - I audiobooked) storyline was much more engaging. I was rooting for those two from the start! We do get some good HEA to make the darkness more palatable, but this was a sad romance, so be prepared.

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