Winter White (Belles, #2)

Winter White
Jen Calonita
356 pages
Released: October 12, 2012
Publisher: Poppy
Source: library
★★★★☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

Warning: This review contains spoilers from Belles.

Now that the truth is out - Izzie and Mirabelle are in fact sisters - they have to put on a happy face for the public in order to support their father's run for office.  Meanwhile, it's cotillion season and Izzie has been invited to join the girls prepping to make their debut.  Suddenly Izzie finds herself not only the new world she was thrust into in Belles, but a world filled with manners, gowns, and worse... cotillion initiation.

It's pretty rare to say this, but I think this is true for Winter White: the second book was better than the first!  I really enjoyed the first book, but watching Izzie adjust to her new life in the second novel was fun to read about.  I've been intrigued with cotillions since seeing it on the Gilmore Girls (remember when Rory had to make her debut?) so I was excited to see it show up in this novel.  I grew up in the North, where there's nothing fancy to do like make a debut.  That was the fluffy part of the novel that I enjoyed, but there's so much more to Winter White.

Aside from the fact that Izzie is still struggling with her move, her fondness for Harborside, and her Grandmother's worsening condition, she is also struggling with a love interest.  More importantly however, is her relationship with her biological father.  She obviously holds a little contempt at him for keeping their relationship secret for so long, but to add insult to injury, she must appear at several public events smiling and acting like they are one big happy family for the sake of his political campaign.  That's a lot of stuff to deal with, but I think Izzie did a fantastic job of handling herself.

If you're a fan of contemporaries, this would be a great series for you to pick up.  They're a little fluffy, but there's also substance underneath.  Definitely worth a read!

Four stars!  I really liked this installment in the Belle's trilogy, and I'm really looking forward to reading the third book, due out this April!