This was good! A good solid read. It wasn't amazing or a new favourite or anything but I'm definitely glad I read it

So what’s going on here?
Ekata Avenko thinks she has her life planned out, or the next several years of it at least; in a few days she will travel south, away from her kingdom made of ice, attend the university there, and eventually study biology for the rest of her days. However everything changes in an instant when, in the middle of the night, she is suddenly crowned grand duke of Kylma Above. Being the middle child in a family of 13, she did not expect to ever have the throne, nor did she ever want it. But her entire family, save for her, has been put into a magic-induced sleep that no one knows how to cure. And so Ekata is thrust into a world of politics, back-stabbing, an annoying and cruel foreign king, and a sudden marriage to a woman who's name she doesn't even know, all before her morning coffee. Not to mention the apparent plot to overthrow her, and possibly also murder her. No big deal. But due to a magical deal made with Kylma Below hundreds of years ago, an Avenko must always be sitting on the thrown. And so Ekata must work tirelessly to find the cure to wake her family, before the entire kingdom melts to nothing around her.

What I loved
First and foremost, the writing in this is phenomenal. This is the first book I've read by this author but I'll definitely be reading more. Girl knows how to do a plot twist, DAMN I didn't see any of those coming! The Winter Duke was very well executed, and I found myself thoroughly entertained most of the time even though I don't usually care for political stories. I think the world of this novel made me more interested in the politics, especially Kylma Below. I like that we got to explore the underwater kingdom quite a bit, but I do wish Meire had a larger role. I liked all of the characters, I thought most of them were pretty well developed and distinct personalities. My absolute favourite thing about The Winter Duke though, is how Bartlett went about integrating LGBTQ+ characters into the story. If you know me at all then you know I love a world where queerness isn't even blinked at, it's just a regular everyday part of their society, and no one even thinks to think twice about it. I absolutely adore that (and wish I could live in any of those worlds, ugh) and Bartlett did an amazing job at capturing exactly what I love. I loved the casual use of they/them pronouns, the mix of genders for the brideshow, and Ekata and Inkar in general. The romance was so cute, although a very minor part of the book. Overall it was just a really well book

What I didn’t love
I had a bit of a hard time with Ekata, mainly because she's painted in the beginning as this really intelligent person, a scientist with a constant sense of wonder about the world. And we did get the wonder quite a bit, but I found that we didn't often get the intelligent lmfao. I get that she was entirely out of her element in the political world, but the way she went about everything made her seem kind of dumb? Like she couldn't figure out the most basic social cues, could remember every bone in the human body but couldn't remember a few names, and had so much trouble making even simple decisions or understanding basic policy. I think Bartlett was probably going for a more socially awkward vibe, and also trying to show that Ekata had no idea what she was doing (which is fair), but it came across as unintelligent to me. It was also a little frustrating as the reader because, since she was the narrator and didn't understand or listen to any of the political talk going on around her, I also had a hard time following along with the politics which made it difficult to really care about what was happening. I feel like if I had been able to understand what the people actually wanted, I would have understood the motivations behind the ones who did the thing that I won't spoil. But at the end of the book, while the plot twist was really good and very well done, I found myself thinking "wait, why did these people want all of this to happen? What do they gain from it, or what do they hope to change after it's all said and done?" So that was a little confusing and most of the reason that I gave this a lower rating than I otherwise might of. I also wish there was just a touch more romance to it. I really liked the scenes Ekata had with Inkar, you really got to see who she was as a person when they were together, but they weren't together enough for me to really get invested in their relationship (I still was though because f/f romance of any kind is an instant stan in my books, especially in fantasy since it's so rare).

Overall thoughts
This was great, I definitely recommend it despite the few things that I disliked. And I can't wait to read more from this author!