Fall of Thrones and Thorns

Author: Jennifer Ellision

Pages: 312

ISBN: 978-1537334653

Series: Threats of Sky and Sea

Genre: Fantasy

Bree and her friends are finally making it to Nereidium but the island is plagued by mysterious earthquakes which forces the party into action. After revealing herself as the lost queen, Bree now learns what it means to be a water thrower with the help of her people and her aunt.

When the earthquakes on Nereidium get stronger though and the people are in danger, Bree and her friends have no time to lose anymore to defeat the king of Egria and install Caden as the new ruler. Back in Egria, they have to find more allies to end up on the winning side of the fight.

With time running out, they have to give everything to stop the evil king from destroying the rest of the world. Encouraged by this, they are trying their hardest to defeat King Langdon but it might be too late as he has become stronger than ever before.

Review

I received this book for an honest review from NetGalley.

My first reaction after finishing it: Finally, I made it. It took me so long to get through it, I had to force myself to read a bit every now and then. After I did not really enjoy the second book, I was not really hopeful that I would like this one better but I somehow was even more disappointed.

Overall, I had a problem with the story or at least how it was coming together. I feel like way too much happened conveniently in the book before the ending, and then, the final ‘battle’ was so short, I could not believe it. Not that I was overly sad by this point because I just wanted the book to end.

So, let’s start at the beginning and I am sorry, but this will contain spoilers but I have to include them as the things that happened made the book almost unbearable to finish. (If you want to avoid them, just skip the next three paragraphs.)

For me, the beginning was real slow, Bree was starting to do some queenly duties and she was for some reason separated from her friends. It did not make sense to me at all and when everybody else just seems to have an epiphany of what they will do with their life and what their part in ending the tyranny looks like, while nothing was happening. And this does not count as character development for me. It was almost already too much for me.

And then, when finally, something happened with some Shaker on the ‘mainland’, I started to get really mad at the book because the reader is given no worthy reason for all the party – including the new Queen of Neiridium – to return to Egria and fight against this threat. I know that she is the hero of the story but she is the long lost queen, it makes no sense for her to leave her people again and most certainly be in danger of getting injured or killed. This ‘twist’ was in my eye just a lame excuse in the story for her to do exactly what needed to happen so she could end up in a confrontation with king Langdon. I would be fine if there was even a tiny justification for this to happen but there is nothing.

After this extremely disappointing first half I hoped that the rest of the book might be at least all right, I mean it could not get any worse, right?! Ultimately I thought, there will be a final battle with the evil king and there was a lot of book left to make it a grand one but again, the author put a storyline in that I could absolutely not get into. I found it hard to read the very short fight with the king as there is the confrontation with this extremely powerful shaker that takes up a very big time in the narrative. And somehow, this character that appeared out of thin air for the sake of the story, is able to beat the group which has had the time to train, control and fight with their elements. I don’t mind that they lose, maybe he is more powerful, but then, and this made me even angrier, beating the king feels like a walk in the park compared to that. A bunch of trained soldiers and Elementals is not able to win against the Shaker (which did not make any sense to me why they could not while reading the scene) and then almost on her own, Bree is able to defeat the king. Especially, considering that – again without any explanation – the evil ruler was able to get powers on his own while on top of that he has an army at his disposal that should at least be able to make the fight harder.

And then the epilogue, which I don’t even want to start on…

All in all, I found the story to be not really well thought through, the things that happened seemed to be just put together to somehow end up with a confrontation between Bree and the king. Aside from that, I got really annoyed with the characters as well, there was hardly any development and depth to them. Also, the people that travel with Bree the whole time just got paired up with each other in the end. Seriously?!

I basically found nothing that I could enjoy about the book and I am really sad to say this because I am sure the author put a lot of effort in it.

This book was simply put not for me at all, I would have needed the story to be more logical.

Riot of Storm and Smoke

Author: Jennifer Ellision

Pages: 350

ISBN: 978-1515288152

Series: Threats of Sky and Sea

Genre: Fantasy

After escaping the king and the castle for now, Breena and her friends now have to make it out of the city alive and get to Nereidium to fight back. With the help of the Underground they try to make it to Clavins to find a ship that will bring them to the Island Kingdom Nereidium.

The journey to the port city is not easy though on its own as they have to face different climates, a lack of water to drink and bandits taking them hostage. As some unfortunate incident in the bandit camp separates Breena from the others she has to find a way to Clavins and back to her friends.

All the while, Prince Caden is trying his best to fight the king in his own way, rallying the nobles and trying to convince them to fight for good side. With the help of an old friend he is trying to get as many troops as possible before the king can defeat them. But as not everything goes as planned, he has to retreat to Clavins where there is a chance to be reunited with the Breena and her group before the journey across the sea.

Review

The book was provided by NetGalley for an honest review.

I was hoping for more after the first book but here I am, disappointed by the outcome.

The flaws that were outweighed by the good things in the first book are really much disturbing me now. I still don’t have any idea of the geography, sometimes Clavins seems to be the country, sometimes it’s the name of the city or I might just get it wrong. There is also some little politics coming up yet there is an utter lack of background information and so I can’t really bring myself to care about it. It gets so hard to read those passages though as there is too much missing for my taste.

I also have this problem with the ‘magic’ again and by now it feels like some kind of magic being in the book as apparently nobody knows anything about it or if they do, they don’t share their knowledge. It might be fine in the beginning of a series but with time I get the feeling that the author can do anything she likes to with the abilities the characters have as anything can be possible with almost no boundaries existing.

On a good note though, there was some character development as Breena has to accept the news she got at the end of book one. I think this was nicely done as the actions of her seem to fit to the state of mind she is in. I also liked that we get inside the head of Caden as there are chapters told from his perspective now as well. Unfortunately, I feel not a single bit for the characters and would not really mind if one would be left behind or died…

I also think that the overall story is still plausible yet somehow although something is constantly happening in the book, there is not really that much overall progress plot wise. Somehow it feels that there is going to be so much in the third book that I am a little afraid that there will be even less world building.

But although there is so much I did not like about the book, it was in the end readable and it was not necessarily that I had to force myself to read it.It

Threats of Sky and Sea

Author: Jennifer Ellision

Pages: 360

ISBN: 978-1494955847

Series: Threats of Sky and Sea

Genre: Fantasy

16 year-old Breena Perdit’s life is turned upside down when she encounters three Elementals in the woods who are looking for a traitor to the crown. Although she thinks that she has nothing to do with this affair, she soon has to face the fact that they are searching for her father.

They are both being dragged to the capital and her Da is thrown in prison for treason. Trying to save both their lives, Breena is striking a deal with the king to find out her father’s secrets and why he left his position so many years ago. Contrary to how she hoped this would turn out, she cannot make her dad talk and on top of that has to play her part at court of the evil king.

The longer it takes, the more she finds out about herself and her past and with the help of some new friends she made at court, she might even have a chance to free her father and escape the clutches of the king.

Review

The book was provided by NetGalley for an honest review.

Reading the synopsis I was curious about the story so getting into the story was easy although it started a little weak in my eyes. After some time though, things started to get clear and I liked the overall story and it made sense for the most part although there are many things that we don’t know yet.

I liked the main character as she is thrown into a world she never wanted to be in and never could have imagined to find herself in. It is nice to see her struggle with her new impressions and information she find out as this just makes so much more rounded. She has her flaws and weaknesses and tries her best to overcome those in order to save those she loves and cares about. In the end, although all that, she is determined not to fail and is not afraid to provoke those around her.

I think there is so much more to learn about the other protagonists in the story but I already like one of them in particular because of how she acts and what she says. Yet all the characters who get a little more attention are very different from each other and it is fun to see the interactions between them.

Another good thing about the book is the ‘magic’ as I liked the idea of different people being able to control different elements. I just wish that is was a little more explored, giving more details on how it works or what is possible.

I think this is the general problem for me in this book, things are just being thrown into the world but they are lacking the proper description or background story. I feel like there is almost no world building which seems very important to me when there is an evil king oppresses almost the rest of the world. But what is this world, are there different countries and how do they connect.

And also the magic, even though the principle is as mentioned interesting, it just is not really well explained. I get that as the story is told from Breena’s perspective the reader can only know as much as she does yet I was more than once asking myself ‘how’ and ‘why’.

Regarding the characters, I feel there was not much explanation about how the look which is kind of bad as I cannot picture them so I cannot feel hugely attached to them. The only thing that stuck was the colour of the eyes of two protagonists and the hair colour of one other.

I really hope that the author is doing that in the second book to make it more rounded in my eyes. And I also am quite curious as to how the author is exploring continuing the story with the little plot twist at the end which was quite predictable in my eyes.

Overall I think it was still a good read though and I was able to get through the book relatively fast.