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4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
adventurous
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
emotional
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This is the fantasy novel I was looking for. It was a trip that I didn’t want to return from. I was here to be entrained and it did not disappoint me.
“I have many names. Or rather, I am known by many. I don’t think of them as mine.”
Every quarter of a century a deadly competition for the most gifted young Etheri battle for the four thrones - a Choosing Rite.
This fast-paced, elemental-powered world was engaging, and enjoyable. The story had my feet kicking, my jaw hanging and my mind buzzing with its foreshadowing, plot twists, and slow-burn love stories. The ending - well, you need to read it for yourself to see.
“Watching history unfold feels very different from reading about it.”
Thank you to the Fierce Reads Team, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, Roaring Brook Press and NetGalley for the Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of Heir of Storms by Lauryn Hamilton Murray.
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Heir of Storms really kept me locked in. However, there were a few plot holes, and the end really came out of nowhere. The plot was intriguing, though, even if it was a little predictable.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC! All opinions in this review are my own.
1.5 stars. DNF'd at 50%/C25.
The synopsis promises so much and then quickly fails to deliver after an exciting beginning before falling into a gaping hole no one can climb out of.
Let me just start with the most egregious thing, any type of slavery as a world-building point needs to be handled with nuance and care especially with making the FMC a noble and the two love interest MMCs royals all of whom clearly benefit from this system. This novel definitely did not have any type of mindfulness about this. I also fall to see why slavery was added into the story to begin with other than feeling like it was written (poorly I might add) as a shock value for the sheltered and naive FMC to internally admonish the system but then do nothing externally about it. Oh, and I am not forgetting that one of the MMCs is one of the people that just cheerily goes rounding up slaves and the narrative was pushing how the FMC found him just so hot and confounding and "deary me who will I choose?!"
Let me move onto the characters, the cardboard my resident One Orange Braincell eats up has more dimension than those in this novel. They are so transparent. You have the somehow powerful but also powerless and inexperienced FMC that everyone hates because her birth caused a biblical flood, the "good boy" ray of sunshine love interest #1 who is heir to the throne, and then the aforementioned slaver "bad boy" love interest #2 who also cleaved the world in half when he was 13 and thus killed a bunch of people but everyone either loves him or hates him in equal measure (did I mention he is love interest #1's half bastard brother because of course he is). The rest of the cast is forgettable as they are just there to fill a trope checkbox or in the case of random eccentric old people, sage advice givers that allows the FMC to "aha!" her mental blocks within the next chapter with no real growth or work involved.
Now onto the world-building which was both intriguing but also frustratingly bland in some areas. It is like the author had a bunch of really cool ideas (minus the slavery obviously) but instead of taking the time to weave it together organically and think about how A would interact with B, it felt crammed together with no continuity and left lacking any real substance. Unfortunately the entire novel suffered for this, there was no heart in it and it felt empty.
The plot.... honestly I am not sure what to put here so I'll just summarize the 50% of the book I read. The FMC and her twin have their name day party or something, an eclipse happens which signals the trials in this world (aka leadership change that also doesn't make sense), they travel to the palace because both are now considered heirs to two separate kingdoms, a whole lot of vague training and parties that doesn't feel like it organically goes anywhere, and then the first trial that is over as quickly as it began and was obvious as to what it was going to be from the beginning (but somehow the FMC is shocked by it), and then the love triangle was quickly introduced followed by a kiss with love interest #1 that also had no essence to it due to the lack of real build up between them because all he's done is said some nice words to her and brought her flowers in a narrative that feels like it's trying to speedrun to the finish but can't even get off of the starting line.
All in all, I do not recommend this book.
1.5 stars. DNF'd at 50%/C25.
The synopsis promises so much and then quickly fails to deliver after an exciting beginning before falling into a gaping hole no one can climb out of.
Let me just start with the most egregious thing, any type of slavery as a world-building point needs to be handled with nuance and care especially with making the FMC a noble and the two love interest MMCs royals all of whom clearly benefit from this system. This novel definitely did not have any type of mindfulness about this. I also fall to see why slavery was added into the story to begin with other than feeling like it was written (poorly I might add) as a shock value for the sheltered and naive FMC to internally admonish the system but then do nothing externally about it. Oh, and I am not forgetting that one of the MMCs is one of the people that just cheerily goes rounding up slaves and the narrative was pushing how the FMC found him just so hot and confounding and "deary me who will I choose?!"
Let me move onto the characters, the cardboard my resident One Orange Braincell eats up has more dimension than those in this novel. They are so transparent. You have the somehow powerful but also powerless and inexperienced FMC that everyone hates because her birth caused a biblical flood, the "good boy" ray of sunshine love interest #1 who is heir to the throne, and then the aforementioned slaver "bad boy" love interest #2 who also cleaved the world in half when he was 13 and thus killed a bunch of people but everyone either loves him or hates him in equal measure (did I mention he is love interest #1's half bastard brother because of course he is). The rest of the cast is forgettable as they are just there to fill a trope checkbox or in the case of random eccentric old people, sage advice givers that allows the FMC to "aha!" her mental blocks within the next chapter with no real growth or work involved.
Now onto the world-building which was both intriguing but also frustratingly bland in some areas. It is like the author had a bunch of really cool ideas (minus the slavery obviously) but instead of taking the time to weave it together organically and think about how A would interact with B, it felt crammed together with no continuity and left lacking any real substance. Unfortunately the entire novel suffered for this, there was no heart in it and it felt empty.
The plot.... honestly I am not sure what to put here so I'll just summarize the 50% of the book I read. The FMC and her twin have their name day party or something, an eclipse happens which signals the trials in this world (aka leadership change that also doesn't make sense), they travel to the palace because both are now considered heirs to two separate kingdoms, a whole lot of vague training and parties that doesn't feel like it organically goes anywhere, and then the first trial that is over as quickly as it began and was obvious as to what it was going to be from the beginning (but somehow the FMC is shocked by it), and then the love triangle was quickly introduced followed by a kiss with love interest #1 that also had no essence to it due to the lack of real build up between them because all he's done is said some nice words to her and brought her flowers in a narrative that feels like it's trying to speedrun to the finish but can't even get off of the starting line.
All in all, I do not recommend this book.
adventurous
emotional
funny
inspiring
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Overall I enjoyed this book and I am looking forward to the rest of the series. The magic system here was fun, the use of elemental magic is always interesting to me and the way it was used in this book was clearly explained and made sense. I did see some of the reveals coming but I also was surprised by a couple of them. There is a love triangle but I found that it was not super cringey and I overall liked how it was handled. This is an engaging and fun YA fantasy to start off a series that features a strong female character finding her own way.
I received an eARC thanks to Netgalley and Roaring Brook Press, all opinions are my own.
I received an eARC thanks to Netgalley and Roaring Brook Press, all opinions are my own.
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy
Heir of Storms by Lauryn Hamilton Murray is a first person-POV YA fantasy. Blaze is the daughter of wielders of fire magic but her power is that of storms and she has previously unleashed a great one upon her kingdom. Loathed by everyone around her, it comes as a great surprise that she is in the running for Heir and has a chance to take the crown. But the two princes, Hal and Fox, are going to make things difficult.
There are a lot of familiar aspects here such as a tournament and a love triangle. What sets this apart for me is that the plot involves a competition for the crown itself instead of competing for the hand of a prince or the crown being a reward for something else that the main character has achieved. The prose is in a deep first person-POV and I did enjoy some of the turns of phrase as well as the use of names as something that hurts Blaze and makes it impossible to forget what her magic did in her grief. The tournament had a few interesting twists, such as the riddle and the second test being based on the elements of each Heir.
I do want to say something very clearly: there is nothing wrong with liking what you like and wanting to read the same thing over and over by new authors with new twists. As a long time romance reader, it does grate when people do knock that about the genre because that is a key reason why people keep coming back: we know how it will end, who the main character will end up with, and what makes it different is the parts and pieces that lead to the romance. I say all this because that is how I feel about the romance subplot in this book. I knew who Blaze was gonna pick the second he was introduced and I knew what kind of archetype he was going to be and that the other guy was probably not gonna be a threat. Readers unfamiliar with this set-up could have a lot of fun with it while readers who have a very strong preference for it will have a great time. I liked how it was written and I am a fan of this set-up, so I don’t have any issue reading it, but if someone is really, really hungry for a different kind of romance arc, this will probably not satisfy.
Content warning for mentions of enslavement and torture
I would recommend this to fans of YA fantasy from the 2010s and readers of fantasy who like tournaments and romance subplots
Content Warnings
Minor: Slavery
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
4.5 stars! Blaze's annoying tendency to have double standards removed the last half of a star, as did a few of the timeline bits. How could she believe every story told about Fox (the Earth Cleaver to her Storm Weaver) and be afraid of him, when she's gone through the same thing her whole life and resents people for it? Some of the timeline didn't hold up, or I simply missed it in the reading, but an extremly minor background character that seems to have been mentioned once is suddenly dead, but the character who cared for them doesn't seem overly shaken up, as if it happened eons ago, but that's not how it was made out to be in the book. I feel like I missed an important part, or it was skipped over? Two small things that didn't really detract from my absolute adoration of this book. Other than the weird timeline for that one bit, the world and characters felt fleshed out, with a well-thought-out magic system. Very Avatar, The Last Airbender style magic system, but the author seems to have put their own spin on it, which was enjoyable. The book seemed to flow really well, and the end didn't feel rushed, the way it can in a book like this. I think my favorite thing about Blaze and her journey is that it FELT like a journey. She had her ups and downs, but ultimately she had to come into her own sense of power (mental and magical) in her own time and had to learn to accept herself. It felt very relatable.
I'm almost sad I read the ARC, since now I have to wait extra long to read the next book!! I will definitely be frothing at the mouth for the next installment!
Thank you, NetGalley, the publisher, and the author, for providing a free copy of Heir of Storms in exchange for an honest review.
I'm almost sad I read the ARC, since now I have to wait extra long to read the next book!! I will definitely be frothing at the mouth for the next installment!
Thank you, NetGalley, the publisher, and the author, for providing a free copy of Heir of Storms in exchange for an honest review.