The author, Kara Barbieri, is a complete unknown to me. Looking at Barbieri's Goodreads page I believe this may be the first book she has had published. She has very good writing skills. Was able to create a beautiful world with contrasting elements.

White Stag follows Janneke, a human woman living in a world of Goblins and other mystical beings. Barbieri has created a new world using known creatures but has given them all new life. Forget the Goblins you know from Tolkien. These Goblins are equally evil but they look beautiful until they are angry.

Our main character, Janneke had been taken from her human village during a Goblin raid over 100 years ago. Goblins enslave humans to complete domestic tasks they have no skill set for such as sewing, cooking, cleaning, etc. The last child born to a family of all girls, Janneke has no domestic skills as her father was raising her to be his next male heir. She was taught how to hunt, track, and fight. Janneke is bound to the Goblin realm through magic; this same magic allows her to remain ageless. Her original capturer, Lydian, has gifted her to his nephew, Soren, after Janneke attacked Lydian with an iron nail. Iron is poisonous to Goblins within Barbieri's world. Unknown to Janneke, Soren has a life long connection to the young woman and willing takes her in, treating her with respect and kindness.

The story actually begins with he death of the current Goblin King which in turn ignites a hunt for the next king. Lydian and Soren appear to the be the most powerful of all the goblins and lead the charge to become the next King. The longer Janneke remains in the Goblin realm the more she transforms in to one of the monsters she despises. She has spent 100 years waiting for the perfect opportunity to escape back to the Human world she came from, will the Hunt allow for that opportunity or will Janneke except her transformation and understand that evil only resides where it has been fostered?

The first 10% of the story I was lost. I didn't understand the politics within the Goblin realm and explanations seemed to come much later. With that said once I understood who was who and what was what I really began to like the main characters. Janneke is a strong woman who has visible and mental scars from wounds inflicted by Lydian. Soren is not your typical evil Goblin. By nature Soren is born to fight and kill but he is good and desires to not be viewed as a monster. I think Barbieri is trying to impart the message that you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover or that you can't judge a whole race/species by the actions of one person. It's a noble message not usually so prevalent in a fantasy book.

Full disclosure, there is a lot of violence in this story. I always try to step out of the real world and view fantasy from the perspective of the world within which the story has been built. I understood that within the Goblin world violence was the norm. Lydian had tortured and raped Janneke. The sexual assault element, when originally mentioned was brushed over. I had to read the paragraph it was first mentioned in three times to really understand that she was truly sexually assaulted When it is fully addressed later it appears to be a topic that Janneke has moved on from. Again, I tried to tell myself that technically in the storyline 100 years has passed. She has had time to deal with the trauma but it was still a tough sell. Janneke sort of disregards the issue of being raped when Soren attempts to address it with her. I am not saying that the topic needed to be the focus of the storyline but a little bit of depth may have aided with the subject matter.

For the rest of the storyline, once I got past all of the story building I really enjoyed the adventures of the Hunt. Things within the story seemed to progress quickly until I got about 80% into the book. I think there was too much, too many adventures, too many creatures to battle. Looking back I understand they were necessary to bring Janneke to the realization that she needed to be at for the story to conclude but I struggled with the last 20% of the book.

There is a second installment of the series. At this point I am uncertain if I will read the next book. I felt that the White Stag was fine ending the way it did. As it is it could be taken as a stand alone.

Grammer -
There are some serious grammatical errors. A book this length I can complete in one sitting but I found myself re-reading a great majority of the sentences to understand what was being said.

Plot
I like the world building. I struggled with the violence and the rape. I really enjoyed the concept of the Hunt, a battle to become the next King of the realm, with the strongest surviving to rule. I wonder if the moral of the story may end up lost on some readers.

Believability -
At some point in the story the author mentioned a creation story. When you truly develop a whole new world it aids in the believability factor. We are wiping the slate clean and starting from scratch. I had no issues with believability.

Cover -
The cover is pretty but not appealing. It doesn't really draw me in.

Ending -
I really did not like the ending of the story. I felt confused and unsatisfied.

Overall -
I think the book was a decent read. I think the story has some good elements and some bad. I loved the strength of Janneke. I loved the backhanded arrogance of Soren as well as his attempts to be more human like. I aways say everyone takes away different things when they read a book. I think there will be a lot of people who will struggle with the "brushing over" of the sexual assault.

I loved this book! A good paced plot line about a teenage girl taken into the realm of goblins after her family died. Required to serve a goblin lord for 100 years, the story starts at the end of her century of servitude and chronicles her destiny. Perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas, Holly Black, Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones.

A compelling new story that takes the nuance of Cruel prince and the lore of Goblin King. Fans of strong characters and women who can take on the world will love this read.
Soren and Janneka make the perfect pair to take on the world. Their companionship and fight through the book is commendable. This permafrost world is so well developed that it takes a bit of time to understand the plot. The characters had their own fears and you developed warmth for the odd man out.

*Warning of slight trigger warning for rape is advised. There is no full discussion but alluded to and the scars it leaves behind are in the plot multiple times.

I was given the chance to read this book early thanks to netgalley! This book will draw you in from the very first page! The story follows a human girl named Janneke who lives in a world not meant for humans. The trials that Janneke faces throughout the book will make the reader look deeper then the story. Janneke struggling to accept herself is something I think all readers can relate with at somepoint and on some level. Kara Barbieri does a wonderful job at describing the world and bringing it to life. She created such complex characters that readers can both love, hate, and just not know what to feel for them at times. Every time I finished a page I wanted to turn to the next to see what would happen. I enjoyed reading this very much.

I found this to be a very interesting read. It was a quick one for me, but that’s not a bad thing. Part of it was because it kept me engaged and I didn’t want to stop reading.
I will say, there were some grammatical issues and typos that bothered me a little bit, but not enough to take away from the story. My only other issue with the book is that I wish the world was fleshed out just a little bit more, but, being a first book in a series, I can understand the authors not wanting to spend most of the book just telling us all of that and using the next books in the series to show us more.
I thought the story itself was an interesting one and while I guessed a bit of the ending early on, it was still well done. I will definitely read the second book, as I am curious as to where the author will take the story.

Really quick read for me! Can't say I was super happy with how it went though.

The general premise of White Stag is pretty cool-a girl living in a goblin world becomes more than human over the course of a hunt. Unfortunately, I was just so confused by this world that it was hard to really understand or be on the same wavelength as all that happened in the book.

At the start of the book, the author dives right into the turning point for the plot, the one that sets everything after in the course that it does. With me being me, it grew exceedingly difficult to keep up.

As much as I fully support the show-not-tell aspect of world building, Barbieri doesn't even really do much showing, and I constantly felt as if I'd missed something early on in the book because of how confused I was regarding how exactly the goblin society worked.

The characters fell a little flat to me, like they weren't much beyond their purpose in the story: the protagonists, the villains, the ones that fell in between. I don't knoww; I suppose none of them particularly resonated with me.

White Stag, for me, was simply okay I guess, though I do appreciate the ties it has to the old German poem Der Erlkönig.

My thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC opportunity!

Wow, I am stunned, What an incredible story. With multilayered characters, colorful worldbuilding, and an explosive plot, this title is guaranteed to become a bestseller. I admire the young author.

I really enjoyed this one. I, sadly, appreciated the story more after reading review comments stating the author had gone through some trauma and used this as a way to work through it. I could definitely see what she was doing with this book.

Pros:
Lots of action. No slow bits that made you sleepy.
Janneke was human! As in she made mistakes, owned up to them and worked through them. I enjoyed that she struggled, needed help and learned how to accept help. There weren't really any magic wands to whisk away the problems.
Soren was not perfect either but somehow still likable. I wasn't expecting to like the goblins so that was fun.
I would love to know more about this world.

Cons:
Needs more world and character building.
Some of the rape references were a little more graphic than I'd like in YA but I get what she was trying to convey. It's something that doesn't ever really leave you. Memories pop up at random and they aren't censored.

Still torn on the ending. I was totally rooting for Janneke to kill the white stag. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all plays out in the next book.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for the arc of this book.
What an absolutely fantastic gripping story, action packed from the get go, I loved it, Soren and Janneka are the strong lead characters, Seppa and the wolves lighten it up, such a well written story, I look forward to the second in the series!

Seventeen year old Janneka always felt different from the other women in her small fishing village. Born as the last child in a family of all girls, she was raised as a male heir. She was taught to track, fish, and hunt in order to provide for her family. She was renamed Janneke the masculine form of her name unable to acknowledge her womanhood. When Lydian, a powerful and volatile goblin, slaughtered and burned her village, Janneke was taken, tortured, and abused. Janneke was near death when Lydian gifted her to his nephew Soren where she was healed and has remained his thrall for the last hundred years. When the Goblin King dies, his loss of power frees the white stage, initiating a hunt that will determine the new ruler. Soren, in an attempt to save Janneke, orders her to accompany him on the hunt; a journey where she will be forced to make decisions that bring her closer to Soren and turn her more monster than human.

White Stage is the thrilling first book in the Permafrost series. This is an action packed novel rich in Norse mythology. Janneke a strong female protagonist, who despite being human in a world of monsters, is a force to be reckoned with. The novel does contain some violent content associated with battle, and flashbacks of rape and torture. I absolutely loved the mythology, and many of the characters and settings in the story were fascinating. This novel had been on my watch list for a while and it was even better than I had imagined. I am very excited to complete this series and see how the events that are initiated in this arc unfold in the second novel. If you love action packed fantasy plots filled with creatures from Norse mythology, then put this at the top of your read list...a must read for 2019

I don’t know if goblins are the new fae but this book makes a compelling argument in their favor.

“The White Stag” takes us into the darkest parts of the forest where the Goblins reign supreme though the title of King is only granted to the strongest among them and when it’s time to crown someone new the bloodthirsty race to claim the thrown and kill the infamous White Stag begins.

So I’ll be honest and say I was hesitant to read this book because of a negative review that mentions the main characters rape and I know that’s a sensitive topic for a lot of people, myself included so I feel the need to address it first in this review. Though it’s a shame to see rape used as a a needless plot device I didn’t feel like this was done in a way that some tv shows or films have recently been criticized for.

We know pretty early on that this is something that has happened and has left physical and emotional scars on our protagonist and it explains some of her reactions both in isolating herself as best she can given her circumstances as well as determination to keep fighting as her abuser is a lingering presence in her life. We never see the actual act but it is alluded to as we learn more about who she is and the cruelty of Goblins in terms of their relations to humans and though it is in the background during the book it fully remains her story and does not at all try to make us feel sympathy for the abuser or make her face this assault at a pace she’s not comfortable with with those around her.

Now on to the actual plot! This was so different than what I expected because let’s be honest goblins aren’t something we usually see leading a fantasy story so it was refreshing to have this take on the mythology especially given their physical differences to what we are used too. I really liked the set up of who gets the throne and that it doesn’t shy away from the winner take all politics in a somewhat darker ‘Hunger Games’ style race to the finish.

The main characters were great I really loved Janneke and the transformation she undergoes as someone who has the odds stacked against her from the jump but refuses to give up. Her strength is something to be admired and I really loved how she straddles the line between both who she is and how the past and present can influence what she will become.

Overall this was a bit of a dark horse that comes out swinging and doesn’t let up until you’ve reached the conclusion leaving you hungry for more and I really can’t wait to see where this series takes us!

**special thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**

I had some difficulty with the beginning. The world where Janneke lives (since an hundred years !!) is not build. It took me a long time to really understand the construction of that world and its polical aspects.
And it was disturbing to read the descriptions of goblins. I always saws this creatures monstruous, so that’s the originality of the novel.
Despite the lack of details about the world of her novel, the author is a good writer. She knows how to make her story addictive.

I feel very conflicted about this book because it is very different than anything else I've ever read and the first two parts resonated strongly with me. It follows Janneke, a human, who has been enslaved by the goblins for a hundred years. At the start, she currently serves as a thrall to a white haired and lavender eyed goblin named Soren, who unlike her previous master has left her alone for the past hundred years. However, Janneke wasn't an ordinary human before she became a thrall but as a child she was treated as her father's heir, called by a boy's name and learned to become a pretty good hunter. This skill has served her well and when the old goblin king dies Soren invites Janneke on the hunt.

Now, the hunt is a pretty big deal. When the old king dies, normally slain by one of his subjects, the white stag that sits by his throne flees and the rest of goblindom must hunt it down and kill anyone, who gets in their way while on the hunt for it. It's a blood fest and Janneke is just as ferocious and vicious as the goblins she abhors.

The book deals with some pretty heavy themes, including rape and torture, as well as, Janneke slowly coming to accept what happened to her. There is a lot of inner monologue detailing these thoughts as she travels with Soren and his bloodthirsty companions, but nothing is ever explicit. She does consider goblins to be monsters, but also realizes that she has become more goblinlike than she would like. I would also like to add that I disagree that her abuse is ever used for shock value but deals with this difficult subject in a brutal and realistic manner. Not everyone reacts in the same manner to trauma and I think Janneke's journey is wonderful but also hard to swallow at times. She is brutally disfigured and I think it's totally valid for her to dwell on this - I know I would. Anyways, it is never treated as a joke but instead handled with the utmost care.

However, I am a little ambivalent about the last section. For me, the first two parts were action packed and kept my interest (I was waking up early to read a couple of chapters before I began the day), but I felt like the last part resolved a little neatly. Especially considering that this is the first in a trilogy. Firstly, it killed off the main antagonist, which is good, but I expected to see him again. So, I'm not really what to expect from the next book but that is my only qualm. I will admist that we do have a rather intriguing prophecy from a raving loon and that there is A LOT that happens in the final moments that I can't wait to see unfold. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a goblin court political intrigue story line - I do love those.

My last little scrutiny is about why Janneke's past is so important. It's practically the summary for the novel and I don't think it really played a purpose in the overall story. Sure, it creates the sense that Janneke has always lived on the border of in-between, but why would her father make that decision especially considering what is revealed in the middle of the story? And I mean, it is a cool little backstory but it felt over-hyped without a lot explanation. Here's hoping that my line of inquiry is thoroughly investigated in the next book.

Dark, thrilling and highly personal. This is the kind of fantasy that tears its talons into you from page one and does not let go even after the book has closed.

This was a book of four sections. Well, at least my thoughts when reading it divided into four. Here’s an insight.

Section 1

This is slow. (Put book down). Am I ready for a new book yet? (Pick book up). That last one was brilliant. (Put book down). I really should give it a go. (Pick book up).

Section 2

Oh my word, this is brilliant! There’s so much going on and I love the protagonist. Maybe I’ve had time to adjust to the setting and way of things. I can’t believe I didn’t like the beginning. The exploration of self worth, identity and body image is great. Quite a feminist text.

Section 3

Ugh. Of course it had to be a love story. Why couldn’t it be something else? It could have been so unique and didn’t need the “we’ve spent a hundred years together and I’ve felt nothing but anger and disgust towards you but now I’m irrevocably in love with you” plot line.

Section 4

Well. Wow. All is forgiven. I did NOT expect that conclusion. How refreshing.

I’d say read it but be prepared for a pendulum of reactions.

Delightful, dark, and edge of your seat writing makes The White Stag one of my top picks. I do love a good dark fantasy and the author perfectly word weaves a tale that would combines all the right elements.

First of all, WOW! I loved this book! Anyone who is a fan of the "Throne of glass" series and "Wintersong", this is right up your alley. White stag is about a girl named Janneke who's been a captive in the goblin realm for more than a century and is fighting to hold on to her humanity. Beautifully written with a rich, well thought out atmosphere and wonderful characters that you can't help fall in love with. i am looking forward to reading the next book in the series

*ARC received from NetGalley in return for an honest review*

I hate, hate, hate to say this but I did not finish this book at 50%. Honestly, I probably should have stopped earlier, but I had hope that it would get better. In the end, it just got even worse. Every few pages I had to stop and check to see if this was the second in a series. Information seemed missing from the backstory and the world building. Why are these goblins beautiful? Why do the male and female ones look different? What happened over those hundred years to get the two characters? How do the goblins get power from those they kill?

Even with all those questions to keep me reading what ultimately stopped me was just how one dimension Soren and Janneke felt. Janneke's rape was a big part of her history, but it was mainly all we knew about what happened to her during her years with the goblins. Instead of just telling this fact to us once or twice the fact that she was raped is forced into the reader's face over and over. It seems like the author was making up for the fact that we didn't know much about her by trying to make us just focus on that aspect. I really was not expecting rape when I started this book. Nowhere is it warned and while it is not in very graphic detail the information is enough that it could be triggering for some people.

Soren. Oh, Soren, you had no depth to you at all. Really, all I understood about him was the fact that he loved Janneke for some reason. They declare their love for each other 50% in and it is so disappointing. There is nothing there that makes me feel like he really loves her. Janneke quickly realizes that she too loves him within a just short percentage of the book. If her feelings were built up for longer and the declaration of love was saved for later I might have finished the book. Ultimately, I just couldn't finish the book.

I really enjoyed this story! I did have a few problems, but overall this was a very strong start to a promising series that I hope does well because I want that sequel!

I thought Jenneka's character was amazing. She is probably one of the strongest female characters I have ever read and that's saying something. She never gave up and I loved that she never bragged about her abilities. She was humble and just trying to survive in a world that wasn't her own. My one problem with her though is that she gave in to Soren too soon. I would have preferred that romance to blossom in the next book and only because we aren't really given a history between the two. A few flashbacks would have helped along with a bit more serious dialogue about their relationship. I mean I loved them together and I thought they were an amazing team, but I wanted the romance to be drawn out a bit especially after everything that she went through with his uncle.

Soren was great as well. I loved that he let her be her and saw her as beautiful even with her scars. He saved her only when she had no chance of staying alive and he trusted her to do what she had to do to stay alive in battle. They were truly equals in every way and that was fantastic to read.

I will say that I thought this book could have been a bit longer. I would have loved to have had more backstory and history regarding everyone's lives and just the overall world. I think the author did a great job throwing everything in, but I just wanted more which I guess is a good thing. I also wanted more explanation in the beginning about the Hunt. I didn't realize the whole book would be about the Hunt and I found myself a bit disappointed that I wouldn't be able to see more of the world. It was great what I saw don't get me wrong I just wanted more! I'm a greedy reader at times I suppose.

All in all though this was really good. I read the synopsis for the sequel and I'm a bit leery since Lydian is being seen as the only option to a bad situation. He did really really horrible things, and I just don't know if I am okay with him being called back to life. I don't know I guess I will just see because I am definitely reading the next installment.

One more thing! I really loved that this was about goblins. I have never read a book about goblins so this was a nice change of pace.

Sigh. DNF at about 30%. I really hate doing that, especially to an ARC, but it just wasn’t doing anything for me. There was nonexistent world building in a story that DESPERATELY needs world building. Seriously, don’t compare it to Game of Thrones without deeeeeeeeply building characters, environments, etc.

Wish I’d enjoyed it more! Just seemed like the author had a singular idea for a girl and a goblin boyfriend/owner, and didn’t feel the need to build beyond that. Things just happened and we kind of had to just roll with it without the exposition. Oh well!