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A review by qu33nofbookz
Stormsong by C.L. Polk
2.0
This is sadly nowhere near as good as the first in the trilogy. Very poor word choices/missing words altogether and poor editing make this very jarring and a chore to read at times. Huge plot holes that even make plot holes for the previous book that weren't there before this book was published. I had to slog through it putting it down several times before going on. This story takes place immediately after the first so it's best to read them back to back or reread the first before reading this one. It sounds like the third book is going to be the same way.
Spoilers ahead if you didn't read the first book or weren't paying attention while reading this one.
Grace and her brother Miles have just broken their society and economy and thrown their country into chaos. Grace has just been placed into a high position by the queen to fix things, but she has promised to do things the way the prince wants them, thus betraying/committing treason to the queen. She also has to fight with the council of rich, snobby nobles who don't like her since she had been formally kicked out and want to follow another member, her ex-fiance. She wants to do her best to fix the kingdom but keep everyone in the dark that she is actually fixing her and her family's mistake. All the while she fights her feelings for a snoopy reporter who is way, way smarter than she is and shunned everything Grace stands for in order to have a life of her own. Also at the same time, she has to balance keeping the country safe from another race who are like gods but who love and trust Grace because one of their kind is in love with her brother. They are glad she broke the country and want to know who was in the know about how it was working and set it up that way before it was broken. They want Grace to figure it out so they can pass judgment. The story ends on a cliffhanger.
Grace is an idiot! She's 28 but acts, thinks, and occasionally speaks like a 13-year-old. I get that she grew up rich and spoiled but she also grew up being trained to take high office and run a kingdom behind the royal scenes so her personality and actions don't make any sense. She can hardly think for herself and what she does is purely impulse, been pounded into her brain by her manipulative father who she can't seem to stop talking to and asking advice of even though he betrayed her, Miles, and the country at every turn, or luck that it came to her. For the first half of the book she knows what she has to do but she won't do it, but thinks or talks about doing it and then....nothing. It's beyond frustrating. And it's not like there are any obstacles in her way to keep her from doing this stuff which would help set up the conflict. She just keeps running around thinking about what to do and how she has to do it because she broke the shit in the first place. And for fucks sake take five minutes and eat something....she is constantly complaining every few pages about how hungry she is but when given the opportunity to eat she doesn't. For the latter half of the book she is doing everything, and I mean everything but still trying to keep everything secret until...oh her crush knows already (how is another plot hole since Avia says she has her former lovers research that he was killed for, but in the previous book he never told her anything about what he was doing and all his research was stolen after he died and I'm assuming since he was murdered spur of the moment he didn't send his stuff off in the mail to her, so how did she get it?)...okay then the world can know too! It won't ruin our country like I have been dreading because I can control it all! There is no need to worry like I have been for 3/4 of the book it's all cool. Also, I am so smart I can outmaneuver all the things that I couldn't and was worried about for forever and everything will turn up roses. Last what concerned her the most in the first book (her bother and his kind being used and abused) has been completely swapped out in this book and the former goals are never once mentioned...yet they were her whole character's motivation in the first book. This does not work at all. I could understand if her goals expanded to the goals in this book because of what she learned at the end of the last book but to drop a whole storyline without comment. Bad form.
Another thing that bothered me more than anything about this book is Grace's relationship with Avia. It's great that there can be LGBT books that show same-sex relationships but this one was just throwing two women together for the sake of it. There is zero chemistry between the pair, zero history, and a very flat excuse at the end where the author tries to make up for it, the history, and a cop-out for the total relationship. It doesn't work at all. Also from the previous book's worldbuilding set up that the culture isn't tolerant of long-term queer relationships, though it does seem to be allowed as a "youthful fling." Grace even chastises her brother for having a male "special friend" and tells him he is a bit old for such things and then makes snide comments about the station of the woman he would marry. She rags on him about loving men. She even talks about forcibly pairing him with a woman to help her alliances on the council and to have powerful offspring for the family to use...But here she is not only super okay and accepting that her brother has a male lover she is supposedly in love with a woman who is supposedly in love with her and constantly tempting her. A woman I might add who's lover was the victim and catalyst for the conflict and plot of the last book... It's like that guy never existed or wasn't anything but a passing friend or even better just a source of information to Avia even though she seduces Grace while wearing his clothes... And she spent every scene she was in aggressively flirting with Miles. So yeah for queer couples but boo for this particular relationship.
The whole character of Avia is also a huge plot hole in this book and creates plot holes in the previous book which was well done in that regard before this book. Did the author forget what she wrote or not keep notes or re-read her own work before publishing this one? Avia is a former member of one of the power families and knew Grace from childhood...and yet she never knew who Miles was in the first book? She would have met him, seen him, known of him after he caused such a scandal of running away. It is mentioned many times how much Miles and his sister look alike. Yet when she meets Miles in the previous book she had no idea who he was and flirts with him when he is looking into the death of her lover...and yet she is supposed to have loved Grace since they were teenagers...in a society that seems like it doesn't take same-sex relationships seriously. They would have had to marry and produce heirs for their families, and in fact, Grace was set up to do that until she got kicked out of the high council.
Last the slavery aspect of this book. Witches are slaves to mages, when they aren't being locked up and left to die now that the power grid they were used for is broken. Yet this whole book Grace goes on and on and on about reform and how the witches must be freed and the people shouldn't be afraid of them or want to hurt them. Yet the rich enslave them to use and abuse as batteries and breed them so they can have more slaves to use and abuse. It was a big part of half of the last book that the witches of the rich should be free. She keeps saying how witches should be free completely and that secondaries (the witches enslaved to mages, ie her and her council) should be free and be able to use their powers for themselves but still serve the rich mages. Her council and ex-fiance ask why she isn't using Miles as a battery when they have to work some magic and she just brushes it off that he is ill but will be there next time... She avoids telling them she freed him because it was the right thing to do and that she wants them to free their witches or that is what she is going to push for the parliament to do. Did the author just forget or is it just not convenient to say? Or did the author press the point about talking about freedom and equal rights but not actually do anything but at the very end say a law was passed to free the witches (ala the proclamation declaration) given the culture and news in the real world that was happening. By the way the cliffhanger at the end with no real actual resolution wasn't good. Okay so a paper was signed that the witches could be free, but no news of this was given to the people and there is only one paper that says so, signed by the new king, and left in his possession while in the company of the man who was trying to get him not to sign it and who helped enslave the witches in the first place. And instead of spreading the word (she was going to race off to tell a bunch of free witches whom she need help from asap), she decides in the middle of the action and climax of the story (and cliffhanger for the next book) to take a relaxing night off to have sex with her crush.
Spoilers ahead if you didn't read the first book or weren't paying attention while reading this one.
Grace and her brother Miles have just broken their society and economy and thrown their country into chaos. Grace has just been placed into a high position by the queen to fix things, but she has promised to do things the way the prince wants them, thus betraying/committing treason to the queen. She also has to fight with the council of rich, snobby nobles who don't like her since she had been formally kicked out and want to follow another member, her ex-fiance. She wants to do her best to fix the kingdom but keep everyone in the dark that she is actually fixing her and her family's mistake. All the while she fights her feelings for a snoopy reporter who is way, way smarter than she is and shunned everything Grace stands for in order to have a life of her own. Also at the same time, she has to balance keeping the country safe from another race who are like gods but who love and trust Grace because one of their kind is in love with her brother. They are glad she broke the country and want to know who was in the know about how it was working and set it up that way before it was broken. They want Grace to figure it out so they can pass judgment. The story ends on a cliffhanger.
Grace is an idiot! She's 28 but acts, thinks, and occasionally speaks like a 13-year-old. I get that she grew up rich and spoiled but she also grew up being trained to take high office and run a kingdom behind the royal scenes so her personality and actions don't make any sense. She can hardly think for herself and what she does is purely impulse, been pounded into her brain by her manipulative father who she can't seem to stop talking to and asking advice of even though he betrayed her, Miles, and the country at every turn, or luck that it came to her. For the first half of the book she knows what she has to do but she won't do it, but thinks or talks about doing it and then....nothing. It's beyond frustrating. And it's not like there are any obstacles in her way to keep her from doing this stuff which would help set up the conflict. She just keeps running around thinking about what to do and how she has to do it because she broke the shit in the first place. And for fucks sake take five minutes and eat something....she is constantly complaining every few pages about how hungry she is but when given the opportunity to eat she doesn't. For the latter half of the book she is doing everything, and I mean everything but still trying to keep everything secret until...oh her crush knows already (how is another plot hole since Avia says she has her former lovers research that he was killed for, but in the previous book he never told her anything about what he was doing and all his research was stolen after he died and I'm assuming since he was murdered spur of the moment he didn't send his stuff off in the mail to her, so how did she get it?)...okay then the world can know too! It won't ruin our country like I have been dreading because I can control it all! There is no need to worry like I have been for 3/4 of the book it's all cool. Also, I am so smart I can outmaneuver all the things that I couldn't and was worried about for forever and everything will turn up roses. Last what concerned her the most in the first book (her bother and his kind being used and abused) has been completely swapped out in this book and the former goals are never once mentioned...yet they were her whole character's motivation in the first book. This does not work at all. I could understand if her goals expanded to the goals in this book because of what she learned at the end of the last book but to drop a whole storyline without comment. Bad form.
Another thing that bothered me more than anything about this book is Grace's relationship with Avia. It's great that there can be LGBT books that show same-sex relationships but this one was just throwing two women together for the sake of it. There is zero chemistry between the pair, zero history, and a very flat excuse at the end where the author tries to make up for it, the history, and a cop-out for the total relationship. It doesn't work at all. Also from the previous book's worldbuilding set up that the culture isn't tolerant of long-term queer relationships, though it does seem to be allowed as a "youthful fling." Grace even chastises her brother for having a male "special friend" and tells him he is a bit old for such things and then makes snide comments about the station of the woman he would marry. She rags on him about loving men. She even talks about forcibly pairing him with a woman to help her alliances on the council and to have powerful offspring for the family to use...But here she is not only super okay and accepting that her brother has a male lover she is supposedly in love with a woman who is supposedly in love with her and constantly tempting her. A woman I might add who's lover was the victim and catalyst for the conflict and plot of the last book... It's like that guy never existed or wasn't anything but a passing friend or even better just a source of information to Avia even though she seduces Grace while wearing his clothes... And she spent every scene she was in aggressively flirting with Miles. So yeah for queer couples but boo for this particular relationship.
The whole character of Avia is also a huge plot hole in this book and creates plot holes in the previous book which was well done in that regard before this book. Did the author forget what she wrote or not keep notes or re-read her own work before publishing this one? Avia is a former member of one of the power families and knew Grace from childhood...and yet she never knew who Miles was in the first book? She would have met him, seen him, known of him after he caused such a scandal of running away. It is mentioned many times how much Miles and his sister look alike. Yet when she meets Miles in the previous book she had no idea who he was and flirts with him when he is looking into the death of her lover...and yet she is supposed to have loved Grace since they were teenagers...in a society that seems like it doesn't take same-sex relationships seriously. They would have had to marry and produce heirs for their families, and in fact, Grace was set up to do that until she got kicked out of the high council.
Last the slavery aspect of this book. Witches are slaves to mages, when they aren't being locked up and left to die now that the power grid they were used for is broken. Yet this whole book Grace goes on and on and on about reform and how the witches must be freed and the people shouldn't be afraid of them or want to hurt them. Yet the rich enslave them to use and abuse as batteries and breed them so they can have more slaves to use and abuse. It was a big part of half of the last book that the witches of the rich should be free. She keeps saying how witches should be free completely and that secondaries (the witches enslaved to mages, ie her and her council) should be free and be able to use their powers for themselves but still serve the rich mages. Her council and ex-fiance ask why she isn't using Miles as a battery when they have to work some magic and she just brushes it off that he is ill but will be there next time... She avoids telling them she freed him because it was the right thing to do and that she wants them to free their witches or that is what she is going to push for the parliament to do. Did the author just forget or is it just not convenient to say? Or did the author press the point about talking about freedom and equal rights but not actually do anything but at the very end say a law was passed to free the witches (ala the proclamation declaration) given the culture and news in the real world that was happening. By the way the cliffhanger at the end with no real actual resolution wasn't good. Okay so a paper was signed that the witches could be free, but no news of this was given to the people and there is only one paper that says so, signed by the new king, and left in his possession while in the company of the man who was trying to get him not to sign it and who helped enslave the witches in the first place. And instead of spreading the word (she was going to race off to tell a bunch of free witches whom she need help from asap), she decides in the middle of the action and climax of the story (and cliffhanger for the next book) to take a relaxing night off to have sex with her crush.