Storm Siren by Mary Weber Published by Thomas Nelson on August 19th, 2014
Genres: Fantasy, YA
Goodreads
“I raise my chin as the buyers stare. Yes. Look. You don’t want me. Because, eventually, accidentally, I will destroy you.”
In a world at war, a slave girl’s lethal curse could become one kingdom’s weapon of salvation. If the curse—and the girl—can be controlled.
As a slave in the war-weary kingdom of Faelen, seventeen-year-old Nym isn’t merely devoid of rights, her Elemental kind are only born male and always killed at birth — meaning, she shouldn’t even exist.
Standing on the auction block beneath smoke-drenched mountains, Nym faces her fifteenth sell. But when her hood is removed and her storm-summoning killing curse revealed, Nym is snatched up by a court advisor and given a choice: be trained as the weapon Faelen needs to win the war, or be killed.
Choosing the former, Nym is unleashed into a world of politics, bizarre parties, and rumors of an evil more sinister than she’s being prepared to fight . . . not to mention the handsome trainer whose dark secrets lie behind a mysterious ability to calm every lightning strike she summons.
But what if she doesn’t want to be the weapon they’ve all been waiting for?
Set in a beautifully eclectic world of suspicion, super abilities, and monsters, Storm Siren is a story of power. And whoever controls that power will win.
Storm Siren was the kind of book that had me shouting from the mountain tops about how great it was after only a few chapters. I tweeted, I squealed, I devoured the book word for word. Loving each piece, each twist and each character. In fact I think the characters are what I loved the most. You had such strong yet amusing people to help balance out the heavy atmosphere the plot was twisting around you. It was fabulous!
Storm Siren starts off with Nym on the auction block. Not an ideal situation of course but tis life and all that. Then bam, one wrong move from a total jerk face and we see our first glimpse of what Nym is capable of. And believe me, that is one hell of a sight! In fact being able to witness the various abilities and personalities is why I loved the characters so much. Each person was unique and added a valuable part to the story and I appreciated that so much. Which is why in the end I have to give the book overall 3 stars. I feel like Storm Siren had the potential, and was on the right track, for great things. But then Weber decided to hook a left and go for the shock value ending. To be completely honest I feel like this could have been a stand alone that ended in greatness, verses a series that stretches on for no solid good reason. Or, if there really must be a set of sequels why not choose to end this one in a way that doesn’t go for straight up shock value but instead makes the readers slowly burn in anticipation just to find out what comes next? I was so busy being pissed about the last 60 pages that any good feelings I felt prior to them was basically erased.
I know that sounds harsh and a bit extreme but this is my take away. We grew to love these characters, we immersed ourselves in the plot, we became personal cheerleaders for the country of Faelen. Weber made us have all these feels, ideas and attachments for over 250 pages just to reach the final point and go “eh who cares anymore!?”. I cared dammit. I CARED!
