Scan barcode
nicolerene's review
4.0
I purchased this book on Kindle after reading the sample from Amazon. The idea of supernaturals who can manipulate the weather, as well as other natural elements, was a different take on magic.
The main character Joanne is tough and I like her a lot. There's some nice sexual tension between her and the other characters.
I wish the author had spent a little more time explaining terms like "oversight", an realm of reality where the Wardens are able to see the world from a different perspective. It gets a little confusing at times and I am hoping she clears it up more in the following books.....which I can't wait to read.
The main character Joanne is tough and I like her a lot. There's some nice sexual tension between her and the other characters.
I wish the author had spent a little more time explaining terms like "oversight", an realm of reality where the Wardens are able to see the world from a different perspective. It gets a little confusing at times and I am hoping she clears it up more in the following books.....which I can't wait to read.
capgambit's review
1.0
I DIDN'T FINISH THIS!!!!! This book proved to be TOO sexually driven for me! I can stand some innuendo or vague references to sex but really I don't want to read about it! I especially don't want to read about a girls first time! We all know what happens and don't need it described!
That being said I must admit that the author is a very good author. Her writing style is very engaging and paints a clear picture. It is just what is being described that is the problem.
Needless to say I won't be finishing the series
That being said I must admit that the author is a very good author. Her writing style is very engaging and paints a clear picture. It is just what is being described that is the problem.
Needless to say I won't be finishing the series
brendalovesbooks's review
1.0
Some parts of this were okay, and there were even some small bits I liked. It was definitely different than anything I've read before. But near the end, she's fighting a storm or something, and it goes on and on, and my eyes started to glaze over, and it was so dang boring. A book needs to build excitement near the end, not whatever this book was trying to do. The thing is, I have some of the other books in the series that I picked up from a library sale. So I don't know if I want to read on or not. I think kind of not.
shawniebooks's review against another edition
3.0
Off to an uneven start with book 1 here, but I really like the world building and feel invested in the main. I'll keep going. :)
katyanaish's review
3.0
***A bitter, begrudging 3.5***
Well, okay. I was excited until the last... maybe 40 pages. Star was the big bad, Jo was racing to fight her off. Star had David, which was heartbreaking. Star also had Lewis, which was... well, I still don't understand how. Because Star's power was broken, right? How in hell was she able to hold Lewis? Marion was on Jo's tail to OKC...
... and let's pause here for a minute to say, seriously, fuck those guys. Marion and her cronies, Paul, the whole lot of Wardens. They are giant idiots who are also giant douchebags. Bad shit is happening right in front of their faces, and they are oblivious, but they glom onto Jo like white on rice, and even keep accusing her of causing these incidents. Right. Because she totally brewed up a big storm to CHASE HER AND SHOOT HER OWN CAR UP WITH LIGHTNING BOLTS. Clearly, no one ELSE could POSSIBLY be causing these things, you brainless turds. Seriously, fuck those guys.
So the idiot brigade is chasing Jo to OKC for the big show-down. They don't even give her points for shutting down the uber storm that was about to kill everyone - they bitch at her about that too. Fucking tools. Then she shows up at Star's, and Star is evil and David is evil, and Lewis is evil (wtf mate? can someone explain how star was controlling him?). And they sort of throw down, but not really, it was all very anticlimactic. And then... Jo dies. And Star, I guess, dies... in a fire she had the power to start but apparently couldn't, you know, RUN THE FUCK AWAY FROM. And Lewis is just fine, and despite being The Most Powerful Human Being To Ever Grace This Planet, contributed less than nothing to the overall story and why the fuck was he even here, again? And the Demon Mark, eh, whatever.
And Jo died. And sure, she's a djinn now, but I feel ripped off. She was, it seemed, a particularly powerful human being, she had some strange yin/yang thing happening with Lewis that I wanted to know about, and now she's something completely different, not a weather witch anymore, because hey, djinn are basically all mini-Lewises - they seem to have all the elements in their control. But I don't want a Mary Sue. Where's my weather witch? Why was she so powerful? Was she really a counterpart to Lewis? Why was he able to pull power through her? What were they supposed to be?
And also, she's supposed to live, so she can tell those Warden fucks to all do the world a favor and go fucking die, because they are all clearly to fucking stupid to have uber-powers, seeing as they can't see OBVIOUS VILLAINS. Bad Bob? Really, with a name like that, you can't see that dude is a villain? And wtf with them not being able to see Demon Marks because they don't ask to? Are we seriously supposed to believe that the entirety of the Warden's Association is too fucking stupid to ask their djinn to allow them to see Demon Marks?
And can someone PLEASE explain Lewis? He... what? Could vibe from wherever the fuck he was that Star had a Mark and was eating djinn, but never clued the fuck in to Bad Bob? Really? And he was held prisoner for ... forever... by Star. And beat people up at her whim. And was then just fine, and cool as a cucumber, and hey, those Warden idiots he had been hiding from for years? No big. They all went out and had a beer or something. Maybe roasted marshmellows around Star and Jo's flaming corpses. What the fuck?
See all the ranting? I told you guys I curse like a sailor. I can't help it, I really liked this book, and was really disappointed by the ending. Disappointed and boggled.
Well, okay. I was excited until the last... maybe 40 pages. Star was the big bad, Jo was racing to fight her off. Star had David, which was heartbreaking. Star also had Lewis, which was... well, I still don't understand how. Because Star's power was broken, right? How in hell was she able to hold Lewis? Marion was on Jo's tail to OKC...
... and let's pause here for a minute to say, seriously, fuck those guys. Marion and her cronies, Paul, the whole lot of Wardens. They are giant idiots who are also giant douchebags. Bad shit is happening right in front of their faces, and they are oblivious, but they glom onto Jo like white on rice, and even keep accusing her of causing these incidents. Right. Because she totally brewed up a big storm to CHASE HER AND SHOOT HER OWN CAR UP WITH LIGHTNING BOLTS. Clearly, no one ELSE could POSSIBLY be causing these things, you brainless turds. Seriously, fuck those guys.
So the idiot brigade is chasing Jo to OKC for the big show-down. They don't even give her points for shutting down the uber storm that was about to kill everyone - they bitch at her about that too. Fucking tools. Then she shows up at Star's, and Star is evil and David is evil, and Lewis is evil (wtf mate? can someone explain how star was controlling him?). And they sort of throw down, but not really, it was all very anticlimactic. And then... Jo dies. And Star, I guess, dies... in a fire she had the power to start but apparently couldn't, you know, RUN THE FUCK AWAY FROM. And Lewis is just fine, and despite being The Most Powerful Human Being To Ever Grace This Planet, contributed less than nothing to the overall story and why the fuck was he even here, again? And the Demon Mark, eh, whatever.
And Jo died. And sure, she's a djinn now, but I feel ripped off. She was, it seemed, a particularly powerful human being, she had some strange yin/yang thing happening with Lewis that I wanted to know about, and now she's something completely different, not a weather witch anymore, because hey, djinn are basically all mini-Lewises - they seem to have all the elements in their control. But I don't want a Mary Sue. Where's my weather witch? Why was she so powerful? Was she really a counterpart to Lewis? Why was he able to pull power through her? What were they supposed to be?
And also, she's supposed to live, so she can tell those Warden fucks to all do the world a favor and go fucking die, because they are all clearly to fucking stupid to have uber-powers, seeing as they can't see OBVIOUS VILLAINS. Bad Bob? Really, with a name like that, you can't see that dude is a villain? And wtf with them not being able to see Demon Marks because they don't ask to? Are we seriously supposed to believe that the entirety of the Warden's Association is too fucking stupid to ask their djinn to allow them to see Demon Marks?
And can someone PLEASE explain Lewis? He... what? Could vibe from wherever the fuck he was that Star had a Mark and was eating djinn, but never clued the fuck in to Bad Bob? Really? And he was held prisoner for ... forever... by Star. And beat people up at her whim. And was then just fine, and cool as a cucumber, and hey, those Warden idiots he had been hiding from for years? No big. They all went out and had a beer or something. Maybe roasted marshmellows around Star and Jo's flaming corpses. What the fuck?
See all the ranting? I told you guys I curse like a sailor. I can't help it, I really liked this book, and was really disappointed by the ending. Disappointed and boggled.
lanica's review
3.0
QUICK REVIEW: I liked this book even though several plot points were predictable. Several times I read a line and immediately thought, "Oh, I see where she's going to go with that" and then she did exactly what I though she would. It was supposed to be suspenseful but wasn't. That being said, I still find myself wanting to read more. I liked the world, the characters and the finale. I will read more to see if I am more surprised by the next book.
birdloveranne's review against another edition
5.0
Loved it! What a great story. Will be reading the rest!
qu33nofbookz's review
2.0
Full review pending
Another book that promised to be good from the synopsis but was an utterly terrible let down of a story. The idea of people who can control the weather, djinn (genies), murder and a chase of the MC on the run looking to clear her name was great. The actually story....not so much. Also it was a slogging read (not just because it's done poorly) but because it's only 5 chapters! The first chapter is 71 pages long! It needs shorter chapters.
The Plot aka a mess of a great idea.
We start with Joanne "Jo" Baldwin who is a Weather Warden, or someone who can control the weather, more specifically the element of air on the run for murder. She is also carrying the mark of a demon in her? This she got from killing the villain of the story....Bad Bob (yes that is his name). She is driving her car, a vintage mustang named Dahlia (who apparently has feelings by the way) to find a man she knows in passing named Lewis. Lewis is supposedly one of the most powerful Weather Warden's around since he can control all four elements (air, earth, fire, water) and has stolen 3 djinn whom the weather wardens keep captive as slaves to get power from and are reserved for only senior ranking and worthy wardens as seen by their orders council. Oh all by the way all of this is happening without the mass public's knowledge. Oh also apparently weather as a whole is sentient and out to kill all of humanity...more on this later.
Any way she is on the run to see this guy that every weather warden is looking for but only she knows where he lives...yet she is being tracked or will be tracked by weather wardens out to get her because she murdered one of their senior ranking people. They will track her by her power usage and signature....and yet they can't find Lewis? Yes back to Jo on the run. Her run started in Florida and in 30 hours (she is speeding way past the speed limit this whole book and is always talking about going faster, yet there isn't a single cop around to give her a speeding ticket in this whole cross country journey? Man I wish I had that luck! Also she doesn't pass through any real cities or towns and no stoplights!?) she is in Connecticut and from there she is to go west to Oklahoma. She calls an old friend and former weather warden Estrella or 'Star' as she is called who also lives in Oklahoma. Star no longer has her powers and they haven spoken in two years but she is willing to help out Jo no questions asked, just drop on by even if it's illegal by her status and she could be punished. She stops to eat and almost gets fried by a giant lightening bolt and figures that someone is out to kill her (duh!), on top of the council after her to take away her powers which could also kill her....but no real authorities or punishments will be involved even though she did murder a man. She then gets a call from her old mentor and kinda friend Paul when she is somewhere in Pennsylvania and he tells her to come see him in Albany and she agrees to do so since it's on her way....It seems Mrs. Caine needs a map since Albany is not in line with driving to Oklahoma.
When she gets to Paul he tries to ask her what happened with Bad Bob the man she murdered and asks her to turn herself in. She gives excuses, doesn't explain anything, tells him she is staying on the run and tries to seduce him. A fun fact about Jo is that she is basically a bitch in heat. She thinks about almost everything sexually, how hot she is, how hot every guy is and how she would love to sleep with these people, she even think about her car sexually. In the end he rejects her, she tells him she is going to find Lewis and ask for help and he'll do it because she thinks he loved her once and Paul gives her 5 hours to leave the area he protects from all the evil weather out to kill everyone.
In Pennsylvania she gets pulled over and given a ticket (finally reality) after getting a surprise visit from a djinn named Rahel who is supposed to be a yoda like figure who is frustrating Jo. Ater the visit and the ticket she calls Paul to ask about the storm chasing her. He is no help and after hang up nearly runs a man over. The hitch hiker she nicknames road dude is okay and she thinks he's hot so she offers him a ride (not asking him where he is going or where she can drop him off). He introduces himself as David and off they go. Not long after they stop at a mall and David says he'll stay with her when they leave and she decides she'll ditch him anyway. She gives him money for food and goes shopping for cloths. She decides on a all purple velvet outfit that she thinks is the sexiest thing ever. She buys the necessary toiletry's next including condoms because hey why not, David is hot even if she decided to ditch him. Then she is attacked when the air around her is taken away. She manages to save herself and comes to in David's arms. She refuses any further help, they eat and David tells her he's going to Phoenix and he should keep with her in case she has another fit (the attack she just almost died of) and she agrees. They hit the road again. they get a hotel for the night and she drives me and I am sure David nuts with I'm shy stay away but wait your hot come sleep with me. He also manages to calm the Demon in her down, she doesn't ask or worry about it.
While she sleeps we get a flashback of Lewis coming to her house in bad shape, weak and sick. He says he escaped from a warden run hospital where they were going to take his powers and leave him normal. He needed a place to crash and picked her because he trusted and knew her. Yet so far all we know of there interaction is she knows of him and he took part of her powers at a party to defend himself, they never even talked there. She fixes him some food lets him sleep on the couch and the next morning gives her a warning that by knowing him the wardens in charge will be watching her. She brushes his warning off, hits on him packs him some stuff to go and he gives her his address before he leaves. This by the way is 7 years before the time we are reading and in all those years of being in danger and hunted no one found him and he never changed his address!?
When she wakes up David is gone and she despairs that another man she has trusted has up and left her alone, defenseless and disappointed...ugh. so far she has created every mess she has been in herself except for getting the demon and wanted everyone else to save her. Even part of the demon mess is hers because she hasn't told anyone and is running from any help and making her look like a bad guy. She gets back on the road and stops for breakfast and gets a message written in salt giving her directions. She follows them without question and ends up in the middle of no where in a trap set by a warden who is after her to bring her in and take her powers so she won't hurt anyone else and cause more trouble. The leader Marion wants to hear Jo's side of the story and help her but Jo gets her hackles up and lies to her. When Jo refuses to be taken in for her trial she attacks Marion and her helpers. She gets trapped and all of a sudden David is there to save her. She discovers he is a Djinn, a free one, and has been with her, invisible since she left the hotel. she thinks about having him take the demon mark but if he does he'd go insane being trapped with it and pain forever since he can't die and would be confined to a bottle forever. They steal Marion's car and get back on the road leaving her car, Dahlia, which she loves as a family member behind.
Back on the road we learn more about the men Jo would have liked to fuck and a disaster of a date with a boy she liked but ruined by destroying the theater they were in with a hail storm (and no one including the date was suspicious). Then she tells David why she is on the run, that Bad Bob invited her to his house by saying he wanted her on a project. He drugged her when she got there and forced the demon mark on her by kissing her which she calls and thinks of as rape. During the transfer her powers get out of control and Bad Bob dies since the demon had drained his power and was the only thing keeping him alive. His house is destroyed too. David tells her that was how he, Bad Bob's Djinn was set free. David argues with her that he should take the demon mark but she has decided that she want's to be a mayrter and won't do it, besides Lewis will save her.
We then learn that she does know Lewis, and intimately, (another lie that contradicts two point made earlier in the book). First there was the party that Lewis took her powers to defend himself with (she didn't know him she narrates) and then later when he goes on the run (because he knows her from taking her powers at the party) and that's that. Well now we learn that at the party he was bullied because he didn't hang out with people, girls in particular because he didn't want to get with anyone like him with powers...But when she started college he was her lab partner who hadn't talked to her and then one day she comes into the lab from the rain. She shirt clings to her and Lewis is flustered, then they just go at it and have sex on the floor as if it's the most natural thing to do. They destroy the lab and some of the school and he flees when he sees what they have done and understands somehow that she was a virgin.
Back to their road trip and out of the flashback they stop at a motel for the night to rest. They go for a swim and Jo thinks David is hot so of course they fuck. Then in the morning Marion has found them, so David destroys the room so they can jump out the wreckage. Jo has Delilah back and they are racing away when they get hit with lightening. Jo was knocked out and comes to with Star driving the car. We get a flash back now to when Jo first started working as a weather warden and there was a fire where Star was. Jo tried to help but it was useless and Star was badly burned and was going to die. Star was left with half her body scarred.
Back in the present Jo tells David to trust Star and they make a pit stop. Rahel pops up to talk with Jo and keeps calling her snow white. She speaks in riddles and warns and threatens Jo who brushes her off. Flash back to after the Fire that had Star in the hospital about to die. Jo has been up in oversight (a spiritual world they can be in and act in while also being on earth's plane and acting normal...see more below). She see's something not right about the sight of the fire and leaves Star to go find out what it is. She meets Lewis (fourth inconsistency about how she knows him!) who is somehow healing the land (no idea how and this is not a weather warden power). This is after he took her help and is on the run. She warns him that he shouldn't use his powers because all the wardens can see where he is (yet none of them have come after him? A wanted man?) He tells her a demon was trying to get through to our world and that was why the fire was so bad. She tells him Star is dying and that her powers are broken. He says he can't help Star and she says that he owes her and he will do it for her. So he heals her body but not her powers. Back in the present Jo tells Star she has a demon mark.
Star asks if Jo wants to keep it and says she knows someone who can help get it out of Jo. Jo gets in a fight with David who doesn't trust Star. They end up at a book shop that is a ront for the weather wardens. Star has found a spell book (no witches in the world so no explanation for this) that wardens can use. She bullies the warden running the place to give her her Djinn. Star tries to get Jo to read a spell but Jo finally clues in that something is wrong and won't do it. Star gets angry and says she wants the demon mark. Jo learns that the demon was trying to get to Star years ago and when Star was hurt Lewis killed it. A demon ended up with Bad Bob and now her and Star wants it. star order's the borrowed Djinn to attack but David stops it and Star gets away. David begs for Jo to claim him or Star who figured out what he is does. Jo refuses and Star takes him. Rahel shows up and Jo decides that she loves David (after knowing him for 3 days) and embraces the demon she has been fighting and fuck the world if she can't have David.
Jo figures out that Star has had Lewis prisoner now for a while because he has a demon mark too and now she has David and wants to get the demon. So Jo goes to Star's house to confront her after stealing a hot rod of a sports car she names Mona (forget Dehilia). When she gets there Marion is there and they team up to get Star who is now reviled to all as the bad guy. With Marion, Paul and other wardens helping out they stop Star from completing the spell and getting the demon. Star orders David to take Lewis's demon and Jo jumps in while that is going on and she, Lewis and David make the house go boom and it kills the demons. Jo comes to with Star dead, Lewis okay and will go on the run again and she has dies...or her body has, Lewis made her a Djinn. she is a super sexy Djinn too. She gets in Mona and takes off.
The backstory/flashbacks to try and help explain things from the messy plot.
So earth or more specifically the weather is sentient and evil and hates humanity and has been trying to wipe us off the face of the planet since the beginning of human time. There are however a very very small number of people who can control/manipulate the weather and are tasked with keeping humanity safe. All in secret of course the mass populace of the world is clueless. However the weather wardens as the call themselves have to be very careful when doing this because if they make the weather better in one area it can make it worse in another because they have to use the weather from somewhere else, they can't get anything from nothing. So why didn't we die out not long after we started because there wouldn't be that many wardens, they wouldn't know what they were doing, and that whole lack of proper communication for so long and all....never explained, they just were and are and everything is/was all hunky dory. Well weather wardens are born with this power and the weather tries to kill them constantly, or not, or yes, the author can't seem to get that straight. They have a council and branches/classes of wardens and school programs to see to new weather wardens and help teach them (called the Association), but only when they become adults....So in the meantime while they grow up they could be killed at any time or use their powers instinctively to protect themselves and cause havoc around them. They are then punished for this by the council who didn't give to shits about them till they turn 18 if they live that long.
Jo was 15 (and already a weather expert, she talks like a meteorologist) when her powers emerged and she was nearly killed by a big storm and lightening. She is saved by Star who tells her to not wait till she is eighteen to get trained in her powers (because again the Association knows about these kids, they even send letters but don't do shit till they are legal...smart). She learns about Lewis for the first time then when Star tells her she has only seen one other person whom the weather hates so bad, Lewis.
Unless you are a powerful warden or are in good with the ones in power you are a lackey at their beck and call and can be punished severely by losing your powers and/or life for not doing everything they say or doing something they don't approve of.
Another book that promised to be good from the synopsis but was an utterly terrible let down of a story. The idea of people who can control the weather, djinn (genies), murder and a chase of the MC on the run looking to clear her name was great. The actually story....not so much. Also it was a slogging read (not just because it's done poorly) but because it's only 5 chapters! The first chapter is 71 pages long! It needs shorter chapters.
The Plot aka a mess of a great idea.
We start with Joanne "Jo" Baldwin who is a Weather Warden, or someone who can control the weather, more specifically the element of air on the run for murder. She is also carrying the mark of a demon in her? This she got from killing the villain of the story....Bad Bob (yes that is his name). She is driving her car, a vintage mustang named Dahlia (who apparently has feelings by the way) to find a man she knows in passing named Lewis. Lewis is supposedly one of the most powerful Weather Warden's around since he can control all four elements (air, earth, fire, water) and has stolen 3 djinn whom the weather wardens keep captive as slaves to get power from and are reserved for only senior ranking and worthy wardens as seen by their orders council. Oh all by the way all of this is happening without the mass public's knowledge. Oh also apparently weather as a whole is sentient and out to kill all of humanity...more on this later.
Any way she is on the run to see this guy that every weather warden is looking for but only she knows where he lives...yet she is being tracked or will be tracked by weather wardens out to get her because she murdered one of their senior ranking people. They will track her by her power usage and signature....and yet they can't find Lewis? Yes back to Jo on the run. Her run started in Florida and in 30 hours (she is speeding way past the speed limit this whole book and is always talking about going faster, yet there isn't a single cop around to give her a speeding ticket in this whole cross country journey? Man I wish I had that luck! Also she doesn't pass through any real cities or towns and no stoplights!?) she is in Connecticut and from there she is to go west to Oklahoma. She calls an old friend and former weather warden Estrella or 'Star' as she is called who also lives in Oklahoma. Star no longer has her powers and they haven spoken in two years but she is willing to help out Jo no questions asked, just drop on by even if it's illegal by her status and she could be punished. She stops to eat and almost gets fried by a giant lightening bolt and figures that someone is out to kill her (duh!), on top of the council after her to take away her powers which could also kill her....but no real authorities or punishments will be involved even though she did murder a man. She then gets a call from her old mentor and kinda friend Paul when she is somewhere in Pennsylvania and he tells her to come see him in Albany and she agrees to do so since it's on her way....It seems Mrs. Caine needs a map since Albany is not in line with driving to Oklahoma.
When she gets to Paul he tries to ask her what happened with Bad Bob the man she murdered and asks her to turn herself in. She gives excuses, doesn't explain anything, tells him she is staying on the run and tries to seduce him. A fun fact about Jo is that she is basically a bitch in heat. She thinks about almost everything sexually, how hot she is, how hot every guy is and how she would love to sleep with these people, she even think about her car sexually. In the end he rejects her, she tells him she is going to find Lewis and ask for help and he'll do it because she thinks he loved her once and Paul gives her 5 hours to leave the area he protects from all the evil weather out to kill everyone.
In Pennsylvania she gets pulled over and given a ticket (finally reality) after getting a surprise visit from a djinn named Rahel who is supposed to be a yoda like figure who is frustrating Jo. Ater the visit and the ticket she calls Paul to ask about the storm chasing her. He is no help and after hang up nearly runs a man over. The hitch hiker she nicknames road dude is okay and she thinks he's hot so she offers him a ride (not asking him where he is going or where she can drop him off). He introduces himself as David and off they go. Not long after they stop at a mall and David says he'll stay with her when they leave and she decides she'll ditch him anyway. She gives him money for food and goes shopping for cloths. She decides on a all purple velvet outfit that she thinks is the sexiest thing ever. She buys the necessary toiletry's next including condoms because hey why not, David is hot even if she decided to ditch him. Then she is attacked when the air around her is taken away. She manages to save herself and comes to in David's arms. She refuses any further help, they eat and David tells her he's going to Phoenix and he should keep with her in case she has another fit (the attack she just almost died of) and she agrees. They hit the road again. they get a hotel for the night and she drives me and I am sure David nuts with I'm shy stay away but wait your hot come sleep with me. He also manages to calm the Demon in her down, she doesn't ask or worry about it.
While she sleeps we get a flashback of Lewis coming to her house in bad shape, weak and sick. He says he escaped from a warden run hospital where they were going to take his powers and leave him normal. He needed a place to crash and picked her because he trusted and knew her. Yet so far all we know of there interaction is she knows of him and he took part of her powers at a party to defend himself, they never even talked there. She fixes him some food lets him sleep on the couch and the next morning gives her a warning that by knowing him the wardens in charge will be watching her. She brushes his warning off, hits on him packs him some stuff to go and he gives her his address before he leaves. This by the way is 7 years before the time we are reading and in all those years of being in danger and hunted no one found him and he never changed his address!?
When she wakes up David is gone and she despairs that another man she has trusted has up and left her alone, defenseless and disappointed...ugh. so far she has created every mess she has been in herself except for getting the demon and wanted everyone else to save her. Even part of the demon mess is hers because she hasn't told anyone and is running from any help and making her look like a bad guy. She gets back on the road and stops for breakfast and gets a message written in salt giving her directions. She follows them without question and ends up in the middle of no where in a trap set by a warden who is after her to bring her in and take her powers so she won't hurt anyone else and cause more trouble. The leader Marion wants to hear Jo's side of the story and help her but Jo gets her hackles up and lies to her. When Jo refuses to be taken in for her trial she attacks Marion and her helpers. She gets trapped and all of a sudden David is there to save her. She discovers he is a Djinn, a free one, and has been with her, invisible since she left the hotel. she thinks about having him take the demon mark but if he does he'd go insane being trapped with it and pain forever since he can't die and would be confined to a bottle forever. They steal Marion's car and get back on the road leaving her car, Dahlia, which she loves as a family member behind.
Back on the road we learn more about the men Jo would have liked to fuck and a disaster of a date with a boy she liked but ruined by destroying the theater they were in with a hail storm (and no one including the date was suspicious). Then she tells David why she is on the run, that Bad Bob invited her to his house by saying he wanted her on a project. He drugged her when she got there and forced the demon mark on her by kissing her which she calls and thinks of as rape. During the transfer her powers get out of control and Bad Bob dies since the demon had drained his power and was the only thing keeping him alive. His house is destroyed too. David tells her that was how he, Bad Bob's Djinn was set free. David argues with her that he should take the demon mark but she has decided that she want's to be a mayrter and won't do it, besides Lewis will save her.
We then learn that she does know Lewis, and intimately, (another lie that contradicts two point made earlier in the book). First there was the party that Lewis took her powers to defend himself with (she didn't know him she narrates) and then later when he goes on the run (because he knows her from taking her powers at the party) and that's that. Well now we learn that at the party he was bullied because he didn't hang out with people, girls in particular because he didn't want to get with anyone like him with powers...But when she started college he was her lab partner who hadn't talked to her and then one day she comes into the lab from the rain. She shirt clings to her and Lewis is flustered, then they just go at it and have sex on the floor as if it's the most natural thing to do. They destroy the lab and some of the school and he flees when he sees what they have done and understands somehow that she was a virgin.
Back to their road trip and out of the flashback they stop at a motel for the night to rest. They go for a swim and Jo thinks David is hot so of course they fuck. Then in the morning Marion has found them, so David destroys the room so they can jump out the wreckage. Jo has Delilah back and they are racing away when they get hit with lightening. Jo was knocked out and comes to with Star driving the car. We get a flash back now to when Jo first started working as a weather warden and there was a fire where Star was. Jo tried to help but it was useless and Star was badly burned and was going to die. Star was left with half her body scarred.
Back in the present Jo tells David to trust Star and they make a pit stop. Rahel pops up to talk with Jo and keeps calling her snow white. She speaks in riddles and warns and threatens Jo who brushes her off. Flash back to after the Fire that had Star in the hospital about to die. Jo has been up in oversight (a spiritual world they can be in and act in while also being on earth's plane and acting normal...see more below). She see's something not right about the sight of the fire and leaves Star to go find out what it is. She meets Lewis (fourth inconsistency about how she knows him!) who is somehow healing the land (no idea how and this is not a weather warden power). This is after he took her help and is on the run. She warns him that he shouldn't use his powers because all the wardens can see where he is (yet none of them have come after him? A wanted man?) He tells her a demon was trying to get through to our world and that was why the fire was so bad. She tells him Star is dying and that her powers are broken. He says he can't help Star and she says that he owes her and he will do it for her. So he heals her body but not her powers. Back in the present Jo tells Star she has a demon mark.
Star asks if Jo wants to keep it and says she knows someone who can help get it out of Jo. Jo gets in a fight with David who doesn't trust Star. They end up at a book shop that is a ront for the weather wardens. Star has found a spell book (no witches in the world so no explanation for this) that wardens can use. She bullies the warden running the place to give her her Djinn. Star tries to get Jo to read a spell but Jo finally clues in that something is wrong and won't do it. Star gets angry and says she wants the demon mark. Jo learns that the demon was trying to get to Star years ago and when Star was hurt Lewis killed it. A demon ended up with Bad Bob and now her and Star wants it. star order's the borrowed Djinn to attack but David stops it and Star gets away. David begs for Jo to claim him or Star who figured out what he is does. Jo refuses and Star takes him. Rahel shows up and Jo decides that she loves David (after knowing him for 3 days) and embraces the demon she has been fighting and fuck the world if she can't have David.
Jo figures out that Star has had Lewis prisoner now for a while because he has a demon mark too and now she has David and wants to get the demon. So Jo goes to Star's house to confront her after stealing a hot rod of a sports car she names Mona (forget Dehilia). When she gets there Marion is there and they team up to get Star who is now reviled to all as the bad guy. With Marion, Paul and other wardens helping out they stop Star from completing the spell and getting the demon. Star orders David to take Lewis's demon and Jo jumps in while that is going on and she, Lewis and David make the house go boom and it kills the demons. Jo comes to with Star dead, Lewis okay and will go on the run again and she has dies...or her body has, Lewis made her a Djinn. she is a super sexy Djinn too. She gets in Mona and takes off.
The backstory/flashbacks to try and help explain things from the messy plot.
So earth or more specifically the weather is sentient and evil and hates humanity and has been trying to wipe us off the face of the planet since the beginning of human time. There are however a very very small number of people who can control/manipulate the weather and are tasked with keeping humanity safe. All in secret of course the mass populace of the world is clueless. However the weather wardens as the call themselves have to be very careful when doing this because if they make the weather better in one area it can make it worse in another because they have to use the weather from somewhere else, they can't get anything from nothing. So why didn't we die out not long after we started because there wouldn't be that many wardens, they wouldn't know what they were doing, and that whole lack of proper communication for so long and all....never explained, they just were and are and everything is/was all hunky dory. Well weather wardens are born with this power and the weather tries to kill them constantly, or not, or yes, the author can't seem to get that straight. They have a council and branches/classes of wardens and school programs to see to new weather wardens and help teach them (called the Association), but only when they become adults....So in the meantime while they grow up they could be killed at any time or use their powers instinctively to protect themselves and cause havoc around them. They are then punished for this by the council who didn't give to shits about them till they turn 18 if they live that long.
Jo was 15 (and already a weather expert, she talks like a meteorologist) when her powers emerged and she was nearly killed by a big storm and lightening. She is saved by Star who tells her to not wait till she is eighteen to get trained in her powers (because again the Association knows about these kids, they even send letters but don't do shit till they are legal...smart). She learns about Lewis for the first time then when Star tells her she has only seen one other person whom the weather hates so bad, Lewis.
Unless you are a powerful warden or are in good with the ones in power you are a lackey at their beck and call and can be punished severely by losing your powers and/or life for not doing everything they say or doing something they don't approve of.
starfallz's review
3.0
Fun. Protagonist little too similar to Joanne from C.E. Murphy's Walker Papers in some ways.
el_viral's review against another edition
2.0
Just not that great. There were some interesting ideas behind this, but the writing was rather poor, and at times confused (the heroine asks to be taken to the nearest car lot, then is confused a page later when she is in a car lot...). I didn't expect the ending, which is why it's a two-star review, not a one-star. Not sure if I'll read any more of this series - it could get better, but sequels are rarely better than the original.