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A review by lilyelement
Hope and Red by Jon Skovron
4.0
Hope and Red is book one in the Empire of Storms trilogy. This book revolves around two main characters and the POV shifts between them all throughout the story. I haven't read a straight up fantasy novel in awhile, so but I was pleasantly surprised to slowly get addicted to the story. The first part was a bit slow, due to both characters childhood being explained but it's well worth seeing why they are the way they are.
We start off meeting Bleak Hope (aka Hope) as a child, her village was destroyed by biomancers testing their latest experiment. The biomancers work for the emperor and they seem to have magical abilities and everyone fears them. I can see why since their testing wiped out the entire village occupants. Hope was the only survivor and gets rescued by a Vinchen warrior and taken back to live with him at the monastery. While not everyone at the monastery was open to a woman living in their presence, she lives there for several years and secretly trains to be a warrior with the man who rescued her. This is a big rule breaker, and she eventually leaves when things get bad at the monastery. She then starts her new journey on the sea and meets quite a few interesting people along her way.
Then we have Red, a young man that lost his family at a young age and basically raised himself on the streets with some local thieves. It doesn't take long before Red and his thief friend take control of a boat and decide to become pirates. They don't hold back, and start off by taking from the rich, then move on to cargo ships. I kept hoping that Red's path would cross Hope at some point while he and his crew were pirates, but that didn't happen. However, their paths do cross later in the story and that's when I felt the story take off at a quicker pace. There's more action when they team up which I enjoyed. Hope is a well-trained warrior, and with Red by her side they handle the trouble that comes their way easily.
Hope and Red turned out to be an addicting story that had me rooting for both of the main characters. I'm honestly not sure which character I enjoyed more, Hope or Red. They're both fleshed out well, and have a tinge of sadness from their childhood that shaped the way they've become. There wasn't a ton of biomancer scenes but have a feeling they will be more present in the next book. If you're a fan of the fantasy genre, I'd suggest you pick this one up.
We start off meeting Bleak Hope (aka Hope) as a child, her village was destroyed by biomancers testing their latest experiment. The biomancers work for the emperor and they seem to have magical abilities and everyone fears them. I can see why since their testing wiped out the entire village occupants. Hope was the only survivor and gets rescued by a Vinchen warrior and taken back to live with him at the monastery. While not everyone at the monastery was open to a woman living in their presence, she lives there for several years and secretly trains to be a warrior with the man who rescued her. This is a big rule breaker, and she eventually leaves when things get bad at the monastery. She then starts her new journey on the sea and meets quite a few interesting people along her way.
Then we have Red, a young man that lost his family at a young age and basically raised himself on the streets with some local thieves. It doesn't take long before Red and his thief friend take control of a boat and decide to become pirates. They don't hold back, and start off by taking from the rich, then move on to cargo ships. I kept hoping that Red's path would cross Hope at some point while he and his crew were pirates, but that didn't happen. However, their paths do cross later in the story and that's when I felt the story take off at a quicker pace. There's more action when they team up which I enjoyed. Hope is a well-trained warrior, and with Red by her side they handle the trouble that comes their way easily.
Hope and Red turned out to be an addicting story that had me rooting for both of the main characters. I'm honestly not sure which character I enjoyed more, Hope or Red. They're both fleshed out well, and have a tinge of sadness from their childhood that shaped the way they've become. There wasn't a ton of biomancer scenes but have a feeling they will be more present in the next book. If you're a fan of the fantasy genre, I'd suggest you pick this one up.