In a land ruled and shaped by violent magical storms, power lies with those who control them.
Aurora Pavan comes from one of the oldest Stormling families in existence. Long ago, the ungifted pledged fealty and service to her family in exchange for safe haven, and a kingdom was carved out from the wildlands and sustained by magic capable of repelling the world’s deadliest foes. As the sole heir of Pavan, Aurora’s been groomed to be the perfect queen. She’s intelligent and brave and honorable. But she’s yet to show any trace of the magic she’ll need to protect her people.
To keep her secret and save her crown, Aurora’s mother arranges for her to marry a dark and brooding Stormling prince from another kingdom. At first, the prince seems like the perfect solution to all her problems. He’ll guarantee her spot as the next queen and be the champion her people need to remain safe. But the more secrets Aurora uncovers about him, the more a future with him frightens her. When she dons a disguise and sneaks out of the palace one night to spy on him, she stumbles upon a black market dealing in the very thing she lacks—storm magic. And the people selling it? They’re not Stormlings. They’re storm hunters.
Legend says that her ancestors first gained their magic by facing a storm and stealing part of its essence. And when a handsome young storm hunter reveals he was born without magic, but possesses it now, Aurora realizes there’s a third option for her future besides ruin or marriage.
She might not have magic now, but she can steal it if she’s brave enough.
Challenge a tempest. Survive it. And you become its master.
I wasn’t that attached to either Roar or Locke for some reason. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Roar, she was okay, I just didn’t really connect with her. Locke was just there, I didn’t get attached to his character or his story that much. He was pretty flat to me so the main characters didn’t really grip me! Though the side characters prove to be much more interesting like Cassius( we’ll get to that rant below), Nova and Sly!
Locke was such a bland character that followed a typical YA trope-the dark hunter tormented by the loss of a loved and is super possessive and over protective of the girl. He finds himself inexplicably drawn to the girl and tries to convince himself she’s trouble while blaming her for the power she has over him and sounding possessive but not meaning to be possessive blah blah blah. Also I find it a bit irritating and weird that he keeps mentioning how many similarities there are between Roar and his sister!
“Yes, but I’m an ass who gets what he wants.” He hadn’t meant those words to sound quite so possessive.
Though Nova, Roar’s maid and friend, didn’t have that many POV’s, I’m really interested to see where her story’s gonna go because she’s definitely gonna be playing a bigger role later on! And I don’t know if I was the only one who started seeing sparks between her and Cassius…I don’t know if I ship that yet (insert pensive emoji)…
Now here’s my main issue with this book. Roar is extremely naive, so i get why at the beginning she was so swayed with Cassius and fell half in love with him after a few hours-we’ll forgive her for that insta-love and blame it on her naivety and lack of experience. But after that she goes through this whole phase of how her trust in men is over and she wants to be a strong independent girl right before she goes into Locke’s arms! Both Cassius and Locke seem to have this kind of alpha male attitude towards Roar and i get it that can be attractive, who doesn’t like an alpha male once in a while? But when you try to combine love interests like that and the girl who seems to be trying to break free, find herself and become stronger, you don’t shift her from one alpha male to another and make her forget her earlier convictions! It just made Roar look weak instead of someone strong willed (to me at least).
