Stuck In Books

#Romantasy #EnemiesToLovers #Dragon #Magic #Elementals

Nineteen-year-old Nessa Thorne expects death when she volunteers for Empire’s selection. Instead, she’s thrust into Confluence Academy, where students harness elemental magic and bond powerful beasts—from wolves to ancient dragons—forging themselves into the Empire’s most lethal weapons.

Students are branded by water, air, earth, or fire. But Nessa’s mark is different. A silver spiral—the mark of an unbound. It’s a power so dangerous her kind were hunted to extinction centuries ago—or so the Empire claims.

To survive, she must hide what she is in a castle that reeks of blood, where students kill each other for advantage and failing to tether an elemental means death.

Nessa’s greatest threat may be the only other volunteer—Raith Hollow, a powerful fire affinity whose scorching gaze follows her every move and whose secrets could topple kingdoms.

Alliances are forged in blood, enemies circle like vultures, and forbidden desires close in. Death once seemed like release from her tragic past. Now it’s not an option. She’ll embrace her terrible potential or watch everything she’s fought for burn.

At Confluence Academy, students leave as weapons… or they don’t leave at all.

#Review

I have very mixed feelings about this book.

I’ve seen the complaints that it’s a Fourth Wing rip off. That seems overstated. There are some similar elements: a test (trial) to enter a war college, a resistant romantic interest, working towards a tie to a magic creature, students killing each other for the betterment of the effort, something different about the mc that makes her struggle to be successful, friends that gravitate to her and help protect her, and plenty of secrets. But many of these elements are just part of an authors craft to create an interesting book. The war college setting is hardly a problem and of course there has to be something that creates the story. I was less worried about these similarities that the actual writing of the book.

First, this book is over 700 pages long. The story didn’t need to be that long. A good edit could have trimmed it down by a couple hundred pages. It would have been so much better because so much of it didn’t seem to push the story along. Instead it seemed redundant. Which brings me to the second problem. There are places where the story doesn’t align. Raith is one big secret and he lets go of them very slowly. Sometimes one word at a time. Parts of those secrets changed slightly from one part of the story to another. Minor details that don’t really matter at all except they don’t line up with what is said the next time it’s mentioned. Those kind of things jump out at me and bug me. Next there is this strange back and forth between Nessa and her abilities. She’s struggling and can’t do anything right but then she learns something about her affinity that lets her use it only to be powerless to pass a test in class. It swings like a pendulum depending on what is needed for the story. It was just too convenient and it grated on me. I could make an argument about the relationship between Raith and Nessa doing this as well but some of that is slow burn romance and I’m more accepting of that. I can overlook some of these issues in a book but the number of them made the book less enjoyable.

It’s not like the book is bad. It starts strong and definitely keeps you turning the pages. I read the over 700 pages in about 2 days. Those elements that make it similar to Fourth Wing are things that I enjoy in a book. The mystery of Nessa’s affinity, the elemental magic, the risks of the enemies, and the reason Raith is a volunteer all had me turning the pages. When things felt repetitious I found myself skimming to get to the story but I wanted to know the story. I had my guesses and mostly they were correct. I will say at one point I was yelling at the characters because they were missing the very obvious question about what had just happened. They questioned everything but never said a word about the clear problem. A successful author has characters talk about that but find a way to dismiss it so the reader doesn’t have it jumping out at them. All of this just makes it an average book. Not a blockbuster. Not a run and tell everyone you know that they have to read it right now.

The ending was a let down for me. I had heard it was a cliffhanger and I’ve read some brutal ones. The ending to this book clearly sets up the next book but did not end as a cliffhanger in my opinion. There were some doubts cast, one of the manipulators was revealed, but it was hardly an ending that would have you clamoring for book 2.

Overall, I wanted more from this book. It needed a good edit to align the story and shorten it. It needed something to make it feel more unique. And it needed to convince the reader that that one thing the characters where ignoring wasn’t the most important issue of all. If you have time and you enjoy romantasy, then yeah give it a go. But I really don’t think I’ll read book 2.