Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - Empire of Storms

okay i almost wanna give it a 4.99 stars. it’s like almost 5 stars for me, but not quite. I also did this as a tandem read with Tower of Dawn, so my brain is kinda muddling plots together. all I can really say is in the last chapter I suddenly was sympathetic toward huge Marvel fans…I get it. This is Marvel for me. I think the lack of 5 stars for me

is the relationship between Rowan and Aelin. yes I love them, but it was honestly giving me yawn boring. like it was the same thing from them every time. Although idk how to get around that i guess. I also didn’t like the Celeana attitude that Aelin kinda sported the whole book, especially after meeting up with Rolfe. I just felt like cocky instead of confident y’know. I’m also not sure how I feel about Elide and Lorcan, it honestly felt very Jeff and Annie from Communtiy

overall I had a great time, a lot more action packed and gripping than the first books, it didn’t just wait for the last 100 pages to pick up the pace. I was flipping pages like mad the whole time. I guess that’s just a compliment to SJM’s world building skills, she really created an intricate web of characters that I couldn't have anticipated when starting this series.

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infjkiki's review

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adventurous dark emotional 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? It's complicated

5.0

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readwithde's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny 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? It's complicated

5.0

Empire of Storms feels like the start of a sequel series: the stakes are so much higher, and the setting stretches across the continent. The cast of characters grows, and I found myself excited for different POVs.

I felt like Aelin's path was so jarring and chaotic at the beginning of the book, but by the end

after seeing her "fetch quest" of speaking with Brannon, securing Skull's Bay, and seeking the Lock and Elena

her journey made much more sense.

Lysandra, Elide, and Manon shone brightly in this book; I was happy to see each of them step fully into their potential.

Elide and Lorcan had some of the best action and storylines. Every time it cut back to them, I had to keep reading.

As nice as it was to have so many other POVs, I would have loved a bit more Aelin. She controlled many of the plot twists, and I would have loved a bit of extra foreshadowing or even just getting to see her thought process.

I did read this in tandem with Tower of Dawn; I feel like both books benefited from that system, getting extra action in this book to balance the extra lore in Tower of Dawn. I highly recommend reading these together.

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ashleynp24's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad 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

5.0

I loooooved reading this in the tandem read. It really helped to keep both stories chronologically and helped to break up some chapters.

My favorite part of this book was all of the connecting plot lines finally coming together. We got to see a lot of previous characters resurface and see how they mesh into the story.

Absolutely thrown by the fact Aelin and Lysandra prepared a scheme knowing she’d die and that she’d be pretending to be Aelin. The other one that got me is that Maeve???? The VALG QUEEN???? I already knew that Aelin and Rowan had to be mates but the fact Maeve created everything with Lyria was crazy it was like she was playing chess.

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amanda_reads13's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful sad 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

We continue to follow Aelin in her quest against Erawan.

The first part of the book was slow, but in Maas style, the last like 30% of the book had me in a chokehold. There were so many twists that I didn't see coming.

I have not been a huge fan of Aelin throughout the series and that attitude continued through most of this book. I found her to be pretty immature and impulsive. BUT I was proven wrong in the last part of this book. Behind the scenes and behind everyone's backs (even her own group) she was plotting some genius moves. We don't get to see how she navigates the world like a chessboard, moving everything perfectly in place, it's all behind the scenes, not reveleaed until

her showdown with Maeve.

We find out along with her group that

she has called in all of her favours to build an army, married Rowan, devised a plan with Lysandra to replace her, and is fully prepared to die to create the lock and save her people.

Manon is quickly becoming one of my favourite characters. I am very excited to see her

embrace her role as Queen.

I highly recommend reading this in Tandem with Tower of Dawn as the two stories overlap! So much was revealed about Maeve in Tower of Dawn, so I think the tandem reading made it reading this book much more suspenseful!

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clursternhop's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I think I liked this one more than some of the others, not the best one tho. Maybe that'll change as I read on but I found the new POVs nice and I liked when characters were more spread across the world. More classic "Aelin did shit in the background that you don't find out until later" nonsense, but at least I saw the "Nameless" one coming.

Also, lol, so much sex compared to any of the other books.

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