Title: Blood and Ember [Stormbringer 3]
Author: Isabel Cooper
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Rating: 1 Star (DNF)
Description/Synopsis:
A century ago, the Traitor God’s fury left the world broken by violent storms and twisted monsters born of darkness and death. Now those storms are sweeping across the continent again and it will take everything the armies of man can muster to survive. As a sworn knight, Olvir is prepared to do his part–even if that means journeying deep into the magic-tainted Battlefield to face the enemy alone.
Sentinel Vivian Bathari has lost too much to allow her closest friend to make such a sacrifice alone. Besides, there are whispers that Olvir’s strange new powers are somehow connected to the Traitor God, and she’d rather be by his side should the worst occur. But as they travel deep into the heart of danger, their growing attraction burns into mutual desire, and the true depth of Olvir’s connection to the evil haunting their world is made clear. In the end, Vivian will have to decide what she’s willing to sacrifice to save their world…and the man she loves.
WARNING – SPOILERS MAY ENSUE BEYOND THIS POINT – REVIEW BELOW
I gave Blood and Ember 1 Star, not because it’s an awful book, but because I couldn’t finish it. I hadn’t read the previous books in the series, so I can’t attest to whether that would have made this book easier to read or not, but I suspect it might have in some sense.
So, let’s talk about what I liked. The writing was clean and well-edited. The lore and worldbuilding were rich and complex, and I think the author did a spectacular job of creating a vivid atmosphere with which to submerge the plot. If you’re a fan of high fantasy in any sense, you’ll probably love this aspect of the story, and though high-fantasy isn’t my favorite, I could at least appreciate the craft that went into this story because of these things.
So where did it fail? The narrative and its characters lacked soul. The characters didn’t engage me or even seem different from one another. I had no sense of who they were as people, and it made it very hard to get sucked into the story – because I love character-driven stories… and that isn’t what this was. I only got to about chapter 8 before I set the book aside, and I can’t imagine how the romance in this book will even develop given how the characters were written.
I think this is one of those stories that would excel if put to screen – where the visual aspects push the story forward…. But I didn’t enjoy how it was written. It didn’t help that the author kept head-hopping between what I can only assume were the two main characters (they didn’t stick out, so I can’t be sure). It felt as if the characters were there only as a vehicle to the plot, rather than a part of it.
Although this book wasn’t for me, I don’t think it was a bad book – simply not what I was looking for. If you like high fantasy with complicated world-building, I think you’d enjoy this book, regardless of how I felt about it.
