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A review by litty_lydi
The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Well after my audiobook re-read, figure it's time to write a more proper review ("proper" being used loosely here) considering I have minimum 5 copies of this book on my shelf right now ๐คช.
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THW is my kind of adult fantasy. We've got two extremely touch-starved sexy people on opposite sides of a war, who "reluctantly" enter an โจarranged marriageโจ to (i) smooth over some political business and (ii) basically save the world from an impending natural disaster. Throw in some opposing light/dark magic and our two main characters incapable of not being at each others throats (in more ways than one ๐) and I am standing at attention ๐ซก. as was Alaric
Arranged marriage trope will always get me, and I am not ashamed to admit that. While it does take a little bit for things to pick up, once things start progressing between Alaric and Talasyn I struggle to stop reading and must keep devouring so that I can continue to squeal and kick my feet as I watch this tumultuous alliance turn into everything I could want and more.
I do feel it's my duty to add the disclaimer that I came into reading this book as someone who has read the original story this was inspired by an ungodly amount of times, and could recite the whole thing verbatim if I needed to. It is a god-tier comfort read for me. And I adore Thea. As such, it's fair to acknowledge that I am most definitely coming into this with a personal bias, and with some a priori knowledge that helps me have a better grasp on the world that Thea has set-up. But that doesn't make me any less hooked to know where this new story is going and see how these characters stories continue to be fleshed out.
If I thought about it long enough it's probably between 4-5 stars from me, and to be fair I will list a few of my minuscule gripes.
- Multiple relatively large time jumps where (arguably) a lot of individual character/plot development likely occurred, which I'm generally never a fan of.
- Felt lacking on the background of the Night Empire... which although their Emperor is half of the story, I feel like we only scratched the surface of what is going on in there. But, to be fair, this is the first of a trilogy(lol knowing Thea it's going to end up being 10 books) so I am fine working under the expectation that we'll get more in future instalments.
- I am torn as to whether this would've benefited from the first book being more focused on Talasyn and Alaric's individual stories pre-meeting (in line with those previous two points). While I am a simple person, who just wants my two hot baddies to be at each others throats, I also think it would've help give the characters personal journeys more substance and really propped them up for their behaviour we see when interacting with one another. Particularly for Alaric, while I love my hard-exterior-grown-man-boy, I also think there are times that his actions/thoughts don't align with what you would expect based on his upbringing for the past 26ish years.
- Last one, towards the end we get a lot of the "he/she could never feel the same way I do about them/it's all a ruse" line of thinking for both of them... which is one of my least favourite devices in many "enemies to lovers" romances(having Poppy AKOFAF war flashbacks).
ANYWAYS, I love this book and will sing its praises as well as gremlin Talasyn and her Night Daddy Alaric with his gauntlets (which must stay on) from the rooftops for as long as I live.
A Monsoon Rising here I come ๐ซก
๐๐๐
thank you Harper Colins Canada for the ARC ๐งโโ๏ธ
๐๐๐
THW is my kind of adult fantasy. We've got two extremely touch-starved sexy people on opposite sides of a war, who "reluctantly" enter an โจarranged marriageโจ to (i) smooth over some political business and (ii) basically save the world from an impending natural disaster. Throw in some opposing light/dark magic and our two main characters incapable of not being at each others throats (in more ways than one ๐) and I am standing at attention ๐ซก
Arranged marriage trope will always get me, and I am not ashamed to admit that. While it does take a little bit for things to pick up, once things start progressing between Alaric and Talasyn I struggle to stop reading and must keep devouring so that I can continue to squeal and kick my feet as I watch this tumultuous alliance turn into everything I could want and more.
I do feel it's my duty to add the disclaimer that I came into reading this book as someone who has read the original story this was inspired by an ungodly amount of times, and could recite the whole thing verbatim if I needed to. It is a god-tier comfort read for me. And I adore Thea. As such, it's fair to acknowledge that I am most definitely coming into this with a personal bias, and with some a priori knowledge that helps me have a better grasp on the world that Thea has set-up. But that doesn't make me any less hooked to know where this new story is going and see how these characters stories continue to be fleshed out.
If I thought about it long enough it's probably between 4-5 stars from me, and to be fair I will list a few of my minuscule gripes.
- Multiple relatively large time jumps where (arguably) a lot of individual character/plot development likely occurred, which I'm generally never a fan of.
- Felt lacking on the background of the Night Empire... which although their Emperor is half of the story, I feel like we only scratched the surface of what is going on in there. But, to be fair, this is the first of a trilogy
- I am torn as to whether this would've benefited from the first book being more focused on Talasyn and Alaric's individual stories pre-meeting (in line with those previous two points). While I am a simple person, who just wants my two hot baddies to be at each others throats, I also think it would've help give the characters personal journeys more substance and really propped them up for their behaviour we see when interacting with one another. Particularly for Alaric, while I love my hard-exterior-grown-man-boy, I also think there are times that his actions/thoughts don't align with what you would expect based on his upbringing for the past 26ish years.
- Last one, towards the end we get a lot of the "he/she could never feel the same way I do about them/it's all a ruse" line of thinking for both of them... which is one of my least favourite devices in many "enemies to lovers" romances
ANYWAYS, I love this book and will sing its praises as well as gremlin Talasyn and her Night Daddy Alaric with his gauntlets (which must stay on) from the rooftops for as long as I live.
A Monsoon Rising here I come ๐ซก
๐๐๐
thank you Harper Colins Canada for the ARC ๐งโโ๏ธ