I wanted to enjoy this one but I found the plot, story, and characterizations hard to follow and not really resonate the best for me at times.

"The Winter Solider: Cold Front" is an exciting story that follows The Winter Soldier, aka James "Bucky" Barnes," in 1941 before he becomes Captain America's sidekick and in 1954 during one of his Winter Solider missions. I love Captain America, but I truly enjoyed and appreciated this story of Bucky without him. Bucky/The Winter Solider is such an intriguing character, and this story digs into his character and memory loss in interesting ways. I was engrossed in the story and rooting for him to regain his memories. There's a romance here that's bittersweet and touching. I'd love to read more of Lee's take on the character because the plot, characters, and tone of the story worked so well together. It's a stunning take on a superhero story.

Full disclosure - I love comics. I love Marvel. And I love Bucky Barnes. So seeing this book on NetGalley was an automatic yes from me. I wouldn't necessarily say that this is a standalone novel, so I wouldn't recommend it to someone who isn't familiar with Bucky's storyline. But someone who has seen the Captain Americal line of the MCU would have enough background to understand the extent of the plot. I loved the additional characterization we got here, and it definitely fits in with Comics Bucky (TM) for the most part, though the content has obviously been sanitized a bit for the audience, hence the star being knocked off. Bucky's more of an adult fic character.

This book is a different take on Bucky Barnes' origin story, focusing on how he enlisted in the army and the effects of the drugs and memory erasure had on him later as the Winter Soldier. While this isn't MCU Bucky, it's an interesting story regarding his desire to become a special operative and then a decade later his confusion as the Soldier and his internal struggle in trying to remember his past and who he is. The two timelines are very distinct and easy to tell apart and the action is constant and engaging. Would be interested in a sequel that focuses on Bucky's time with Steve Rogers.

<i>"Do you know what a desperado is? In chess? A desperado is a piece you know you can't save, so you do as much damage with it as possible before it dies. That's what I told you I was, in one of our letters. You told me I had a very grand opinion of myself. Which I did. You weren't wrong. But every gambit requires a sacrifice."</i>
--Imogen "Gimlet" Fleming

<i>"All that means is you've realized the world can't be neatly divided into good guys and bad guys. That's the first step. Now you can quit worrying about doing what's right and start focusing on doing what's needed."</i>
--Steve "Captain America" Rogers

TL;DR: An action-packed, fast-paced doozy of a spy-thriller-chess gambit, which rounds out Mackenzi Lee's "anti-hero" series for Marvel. And if she wants to, Marvel, please let her write more.
Lee scaffolds two timelines following Bucky Barnes -- 1941 at the start of his military/superhero career and 1954 as the Winter Soldier used as the "perfect weapon" used by the Russian government. The two narratives work to establish Bucky as Steve's foil, but also his equal -- and give some insight into his character which (I believe) is fully developed in the comics, but glossed over in the MCU.
Worth noting: unlike Lee's other two Marvel novels, this one is not MCU canon. That is, Lee's Bucky is an amalgamation of the MCU/Comics versions of Bucky, so keep that in mind before reading. Lee's Bucky is not, for example, childhood friends with Steve/Cap, and <a href="https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/James_Buchanan_Barnes_(Earth-616)">I found this summary of his character to be really helpful. </a>

</i><b>Disclaimer: I received an ARC from Netgalley & Disney Publishing in exchange for an honest review.</i></b>

Vibes: MCU meets The Queen's Gambit, with a dash of Tolstoy and James Bond

Genre: MCU / Marvel companion novelization
**I'd say the darkest of the three Lee has written for Marvel -- which tracks, as Bucky's history is pretty dark.

Romance Meter: 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 ♡
Doomed Lovers Trope. Much of Bucky's relationship is implied -- we see him meet Gimlet and fall for her, but aside from one fairly chaste kiss, most of their relationship is lost to memory inhibition compounds and Bucky (and the reader) only get glimpses and flashes of it.
Plus some Steve/Bucky subtext is there, if you want it to be.

Character MVP: Gimlet/Ginny/Imogen. I *love* Bucky, and was 100% on board for this, whatever direction Mackenzi Lee took it, but Gimlet is just a fantastic character. Complex and atypical and smart and funny and tragic.
In my head, she looks like Natalie Dormer -- probably because she has a bit role in Captain America, but the blond pin curls and red lipstick made me think of her character -- but she is definitely related to Felicity from Lee's Montague Siblings series. And I stan a complex female character.

Verdict: 5 stars, hands down.

Disclaimer: Mackenzi Lee is an autobuy author for me. I love her work, and I think she is an amazing writer. Seriously, with descriptions like these:

<i>"The sparse bulbs are shaded in amber, turning the light warm-toned and syrupy, like the bar sits in the belly of a whiskey bottle."</i>
<i>"...Bucky could see it perfectly in his head, the knife across the woman's throat, the blood unfurling down her front like unbolted silk."</i>

But she's not just a descriptive writer.
Her plot action packed and well-paced -- she seamlessly moved between the two timelines and the pacing never faltered -- and she unraveled the "mystery" perfectly. (I say "mystery" because if you have any comics/MCU knowledge, you know V's history; the "mystery" is him uncovering it. Although the reader isn't quite sure how Gimlet fits in, so it works on that level as well.)
And her characters -- oh Mackenzi Lee, your characters. They're always so fleshed out and unique, with different voices and personality quirks -- I felt for all of them, despite - or maybe because of - the sense of impending tragedy. Every time Bucky got his hope up and fought valiantly to be free...broke my heart.

The biggest complaints I've seen are (1) that the two timelines don't sync up / mesh well together (which, NO) and (2) that the character here "isn't Bucky." And, if your only experience with Bucky is Sebastian Stan's *excellent* portrayal of him in the MCU, I get that.

But, this isn't the MCU's Bucky -- from what I understand, this is somewhere between the MCU and the comics. Here, like in the comics, Bucky is from Indiana; his parents die and he moves to Virginia to Camp Lehigh, and he's recruited by the SOE. He does work alongside Steve Rogers, but he's captured not by Hydra, but by the Russians who still turn him into the Winter Soldier. (Although it's more of a bionic/memory thing than a super soldier serum thing.) And it's not quite the comics since, as I understand it, in Russia Bucky meets Natasha/Black Widow, which doesn't happen in Lee's story (although it seems she lobbied for it; womp womp).

If anything, I thought taking a step back from the MCU's version of Bucky allowed Lee to play with/explore why Cap and Bucky are good together. In the MCU, they're childhood friends, and there's a big brother dynamic to Bucky's relationship with Steve in that he's always looking out for him, since he knows pre-super-soldier-serum-Steve.
But here, we get to see Bucky-outside-of-Steve, in the time before he becomes the Winter Soldier. And I thought Mackenzi Lee did a really good job of showing us that Bucky, just like Steve, has an acute sense of right vs. wrong. Steve/Cap might be a super-stickler for the rules (at least pre-Civil-War in the MCU), and Bucky might show a certain disregard for them, but they're rooted in the same overarching morality. Which makes Bucky -- knowing what we know of the Winter Soldier -- a good foil for Steve -- like a yin-and-yang thing.
And his relationship with Gimlet is sort of a parallel-yet-twisted version of Steve & Peggy's relationship: American soldier falls for a sharp-tongued & empowered British woman. Both Peggy and Gimlet are affiliated with the military/spy-work, but much like the men they fall for, Gimlet is more of an antiheroine with a disregard for the rules just as Peggy is a little bit of a stickler for them.

One of the reasons Mackenzi Lee is an autobuy author for me is because there's more to her stories than just the plot and characters: there are thoughtful, intentional layers beneath the surface-level plot action that just gives her work such depth -- which I definitely appreciate. (And which is (one of) my main issues with the Disney books by Serena Valentino: there's very little, if any, depth or substance beneath the (messy) surface-level plot.) More Marvel books from Mackenzi Lee, Disney!

The Winter Soldier: Cold Front by Mackenzie Lee is everything I was hoping it would be.
Bucky Barnes may be my favorite MCU character, and he doesn’t disappoint in this book. You have the same character you love from the movies but with a bit of a twist.
I recommend this to all my MCU lovers but also anyone you appreciates a well written book (so basically everyone should read this for fun).

Thank you #netgalley for the ARC of this book!

A big thanks to NetGalley and Disney Publishing Worldwide for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

*excited screaming* BUCKY! MY BOUNCING BABY BOY! What have they done to you?

He's back and not so much better than ever. The Winter Soldier: Cold Front by Mackenzie Lee is a YA novelization/continuation of the beloved yet deadly story of the MCU's Winter Solider. Aka James Buchanan Barnes. Aka Bucky Barnes. Aka my favorite character right next to Loki. In Lee's novel, we get to see more of the human side of the Winter Solider, with an explanation to his backstory and more on who Bucky was before the whole train incident. As well as the general struggle he faces when trying to discern to two parts of his life: Bucky Barnes and the Winter Solider.

Overall, I thought this was a great novel in the sense of giving Bucky more room to breathe and become a character beyond the movie screen. But I feel like some parts of the book was just unnecessary and took up more space on the page.

Regardless, I was just happy to see my precious baby bean back in action.

Mackenzi Lee explores the Marvel universe with enjoyable prose once again. The Winter Soldier is a fascinating character all his own, and Lee crafts an adventure that is historical and stays true to the character.

Welp, I burned through this in a day. As other reviewers have noted, this is *not* MCU Bucky. Very enjoyable, and I'm off to look at what else the author has written.
Thank you very much to Disney and Marvel for the ARC!

The writing was phenomenal.
The details and the descriptions made it real, made me feel like I was there, being dragged from cryo or being drugged, etc.

I love Bucky Barnes.
But this was mostly a tiny piece of what he was up to before meeting Steve and terrible piece of the Winter Soldier’s possible history.

It isn’t MCU Bucky or Winter Soldier, but all so plausible. Even when knowing that the Winter Soldier couldn’t get a happy ending, I was hoping for Bucky to come back!

Kind of hard to follow. Not as interesting as I hoped it would be. Wish dome of the characters had been more fleshed out.

#TheWinterSoldierColdFront #NetGalley Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this novel. I encourage you to check this one out! Really solid read.

Ahh! I'm so excited for this series! I really enjoyed this book and Bucky Barne's past. It was great to have a story about one of the more mysterious Marvel Avengers. I can't wait to see where this series goes and who else is involved!

I went into this novel knowing it was not about MCU Bucky but dang the storyline was great. Poor Bucky. It was a good read and quite fast paced. I did find Ginny, the love interest a bit annoying after awhile but Bucky's character was hoot.

I've always really liked Bucky Barnes as the Winter Soldier, so much that I've even written fanfiction about the character myself. I know he's been through a lot of different stories in the graphic novels that have come out of the years and I was really curious to see how Mackenzie Lee would write the character.

Overall, I was not incredibly impressed. I think one of the most interesting things about Bucky, especially in regards to his origin story, is usually his relationship with Steve Rogers/Captain America. I think that's probably what most people would want to read about. And this book completely eliminates that relationship. I was hoping that we'd end up getting there since there was a whole section about erasing memories (basically this book is an origin story on the drug that they end up using to modify the Winter Soldier's memory) but then it never comes to fruition. Steve is mentioned once or twice, and there even seems to be a mention of the two of them flirting, but then nothing.

The main focus instead is on a girl that has no other real relevance to the MCU. It would have been more fun for her to have been someone we knew or have her be related to someone we knew from the movies. As it was, I just didn't care for the love interest and thought she was unnecessary.

Basically, I just wish that this had went a different direction.

I love Bucky Barnes and it's really cool getting so many details about his backstory. It adds a lot of depth to his character. This book reminds me of the new Star Wars books, it expands on the story of a much loved character, while still providing a lot of original content.

Winter Soldiers is one of my three favorite Marvel characters. His tragic and yet triumphant story is classic, and he is given extreme situations to weather as only a super hero story can present.

My biggest plus for this is the art. It's gritty and evocative. You can feel the scenes as they happen. You get a strong sense of just who the Soldier is, and what he's been through. It may throw some people who are used to Sebastian Stan as the Soldier because he does not look like the actor in this book. I saw the actor's face for the first few pages and then switched to seeing the actual drawn face.

Solid entry in the Marvelverse.

Not a terrible book. I like the way Mackenzi Lee writes. Even though the story wasn't entirely satisfying, it was still well-paced (with the exception of pages of descriptions of chess moves that I skimmed) and engaging.

In 1941, Bucky Barnes was a rebellious teen itching to join the army. When that fails, he settles for training as a spy in England. He immediately lands in the middle of a conspiracy that's way above his pay grade and ends up on the run with a headstrong Brit named Gimlet. By 1954, Bucky has been transformed into the Winter Soldier, a mindless killing machine wielded by the Soviet Union. Then cracks start to form in his conditioning. The two timelines function as vaguely dissatisfying novellas, failing to either weave together or wrap anything up.

Maybe I should stop reading Mackenzi Lee's Marvel books and stick to her original stuff...Gentleman's Guide never let me down like this...

Cold Front isn't a bad book -- but if you're going in, like me, with a huge love of Bucky Barnes, this isn't going to be sunshine and roses. Obviously the Bucky story arc is a tragic one, we all know this, but I have a history -- a decade of history -- worth of memories of Bucky from the comics that I'm bringing with me to this novel, and considering how easy it is for people to find old comics online to read now, I won't be the only one, even if I *am* outside of the target audience. Lee put her own spin on things, and while that's...fine, obviously she's the author, it's her choice, it's just not what I expected.

I guess I was hoping for a little more insight into the Winter Soldier and a little less YA historical adventure. I don't know. 3/5 because Lee is still a good writer, even if I ultimately was glad to get this one over with.