Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas - ADULT

 

Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass, #5) by Sarah J. Maas, 689 pages. Bloomsbury, 2016. $19.  

Content: Language: R (100+ swears); Mature Content: R; Violence: PG-13.  

BUYING ADVISORY: ADULTS  

Aelin and her love, Rowan are still leading a band of fae, humans and witches against one of the darkest evils in their land, Erawan.  Maeve is the fae queen, who also has a hold on some of the men helping Aelin to fight for her kingdom, and her evil knows no bounds.  Manon is a witch who has broken from her grandmother’s coven and she is brought to Aelin injured but willing to help the cause.  As the troops gather, Aelin has to learn to control the power within her and sift through the past to find the answers that might save them all.  

I’m five books into this deeply developed fantasy and the main storyline is intriguing enough to keep reading.  I love the minor characters and care about their stories as much as Aelin’s, so the author is good at character development. My complaints are that five books in, and a year between each book, makes it hard to remember who is who and what has happened, and the author doesn’t bridge the books at all or provide a character list. Also, there are a lot of names to keep track of-places, characters, kingdoms, powers and unless you read this series back to back you have to accept the fact that you are going to be confused some of the time. The ending is a total cliff hanger and super unsatisfying and right at the build up of the battle, the story line is slow with a visit to the past.  This book is advertised for young adults, but the content is on page sex, a very high swear count and bloody battles.  The characters are nineteen and older and this is book fits more in the new adult genre.  

Reviewer, C. Peterson

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