Friday #Review - Blood and Tempest by Jon Skovron #Fantasy

Series: The Empire of Storms # 3
Format: Paperback, 464 pages
Release Date: November 28,2017
Publisher: Orbit
Source: Library
Genre: Fantasy

The thrilling conclusion to Jon Skovron's adventure fantasy series, two young people from a fracturing empire spread across savage seas must find a way to keep their nation together.

Still reeling from the events at Dawn's Light, Hope struggles to understand what it means to be a warrior who has vowed to never again take up a sword.

Red is enjoying his new role as imperial spy. Perhaps a bit too much. But his loyalties will be tested when his employer, Lady Hempist, relents and assigns him the one task he's been begging for all along: recruiting Hope and Brigga Lin to help rid the empire of biomancery once and for all.

Fate brought them together; it will tear their empire apart.

The Empire of Storms
Hope and Red
Bane and Shadow
Blood and Tempest

Blood and Tempest is the third and final installment in author Jon Skovron's Empire of Storms. Although this series has mostly focused on Bleak Hope and Red over the last two books, Skovron has added other characters and given them much broader narrative in this series than perhaps was absolutely necessary. As this story picks up, Red has taken control over his darker side; his shadow side that was put there by the biomancers who used him to kill off those who were causing trouble. 

Red has been working with Lady Merivale Hempist, who is the Kingdom's spy master. She is a brilliant tactician who is 5 moves ahead of anyone else. Merivale wants to disrupt the newly formed alliance between the Biomancers, and the Vinchen's who are now under the leadership of a real piece of work who has a prior relationship with Hope. She wants to save the Prince and heir from being eliminated. She wants an alliance with the people her kingdom is afraid of. And, she needs to find a way to bring Hope and Brigga Lin back into the fold since they have both been at the top of the Biomancers and Vinchen's list of those who need to be killed quickly. 

Merivale should be mentioned as one of the driving forces as to what happens in this book, and how the characters like Hope, Red, Jilly, Brigga Lin, and Nettie make their way back to each other in order to save a crumbling empire. At the same time, Hope isn't the same character we met in the first two novels. She's more introspective. She's searching for a way to find a new path for herself without having to once again pick up a sword which she has since left behind thanks to the events of Dawn's Light. For Hope, this is a long drawn out journey. 

A journey that will take her back to Bleak Hope for the first time since she was 8 years old and the biomancers killed everyone on her island. She's searching for answers about her own heritage which leads her to a strange boy named Uter who will become her ward and companion. There are other stops along the way as well including back to the place where she trained to become a Vinchen, and a reunion with Red's cousin Alash. Hope has regrets when it comes to Jilly and especially Brigga Lin after she left both of them behind to find her own way. 

Meanwhile, both Jilly and Brigga Lin are serving on the same pirate ship. For months, Brigga has felt as though she was drowning. She hasn't done much with her life since being left behind by Hope. She hasn't even bothered to try to train Jilly who both she and Hope promised to be mentors to guide Jilly into being a biomancer/Vinchen warrior. As you are reading this book, you are just waiting for the powder keg to explode. You know that certain characters are waging a war that will end up collecting all of your favorite and not so favorite characters.

The major problem I have had with this story was that it just wasn't as entertaining as the first two novels. There was a slow roll which included some new characters, some new twists, and some interesting turn of events when it came to how the author was going to wrap up this series. I don't believe that this book needed as many narrators that it had. I was truly and fully engaged into this being Hope and Red's series, but then it became much, much bigger and perhaps left something behind in its wake. I will say this. You definitely should read this series. You should read the books as they were released. You should take your time when you get to the ending where Hope, Red, Brigga Lin, Jilly, Uter, Alash, Vaderton, Nettie, Merivale, and their allies are forced to face a slew of bizarro creatures in order to save the Empire.  

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Friday #Review - Bane and Shadow by Jon Skovron #Fantasy @jonnyskov @orbitbooks

Series: Empire of Storms # 2
Format: Paperback, 496 pages
Release Date: February 28, 2017
Publisher: Orbit
Source: Library
Genre: Fantasy

A killer adventure fantasy follow-up to HOPE AND RED, set in a fracturing empire spread across savage seas, where two young people from different cultures find common purpose. Red is being trained as a cold-blooded assassin by the biomancers. As he becomes increasingly embroiled in palace politics, he learns that even life among the nobility can be deadly. While terrorizing imperial ships as the pirate Dire Bane, Hope stumbles onto a biomancer plot of such horrifying scope that it makes even the massacre of her childhood village seem small in comparison. With the biomancers tightening their grip of fear over the empire, Hope and Red struggle to fill their new roles and responsibilities, but the cost will be greater than any of them realize.

Bane and Shadow is the second installment in author Jon Skovron's Empire of Storms trilogy. The story picks up approximately one year after the ending of Hope and Red. The story alternatives narratives between Hope and Red. A year after trading in his freedom for Hope and Brigga Lin's freedom from the Council of Biomancers (who they came to destroy), Red has been elevated to the position of the new Lord Pastina's which means he has become close to Prince Lester, the presumed heir. 

Red finds out that living in subterfuge has it's drawbacks. Especially when he meets Lady Merivale Hempist, an anti-biomancer, bulls her way into Red's life, and changes what might have been a bleak future if he had been left alone to the Biomancer's machinations. He is something sinister under the control of the Biomancers. The Biomancers have manipulated Red into becoming their personal assassin against those who are enemies of the Empire. They are manipulators of biology, can twist people into twisted beings, and have created monsters that protect the borders. They also have secretive plans to "protect" the Empire from invaders from Alekbontar. 

Meanwhile, Hope now Dire Bane, has become a thorn in the side of the Empire and the Council of Biomancers. Hope's crew of Nettie, Filler, Brigga Lin, Sadie, Alash, and One-Eyed Finn are now flying under the Flag of Dire Bane, and their ship is called The Kraken Hunter. The most curious addition to Hope's crew is Jilly who really does make this story entertaining. Right right out of the starting block, they are in the middle of taking down an Empire ship, and things get even more exciting as the story rolls on. 

Hope remains as the only female Venchen and her sword is undeniably causing some uncertain feelings to crop up. Hope hopes to purge the Empire of the Council of Biomancers and free Red from under their control. At the root of the story is who is Hope really? She started out this journey with vengeance on her mind. Vengeance against the Biomancers who killed her parents and her village leaving her as sole survivor. She trained for years to become a Venchen Warrior, but she earned no respect at all from the male Venchen. 

Hope has been so used to being alone, that she now has a core group of people she can call family & friends. But, one of its most important members is out of reach, for now. As Hope and her crew set out to destroy the Biomancer's plans on a remote island, she has no idea how her own path will play itself out when all is said and done. Is she the Pirate Dire Bane, hero to the people? Is she a Venchen warrior with ties to an empire she knows nothing about? If she isn't a pirate or a hero, or a warrior, who then is she really? I think we are in for a very interesting conclusion to this trilogy.   

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Tuesday #Review - Hope and Red (Empire of Storms # 1) by Jon Skovon #Fantasy

Series: Empire of Storms # 1
Format: Paperback, 544 pages
Release Date: June 30, 2016
Publisher: Orbit
Source: Publisher
Genre: Fantasy / Action & Adventure

In a fracturing empire spread across savage seas, two young people from different cultures find common purpose. A nameless girl is the lone survivor when her village is massacred by biomancers, mystical servants of the emperor. Named after her lost village, Bleak Hope is secretly trained by a master Vinchen warrior as an instrument of vengeance. 

A boy becomes an orphan on the squalid streets of New Laven and is adopted by one of the most notorious women of the criminal underworld, given the name Red, and trained as a thief and con artist. When a ganglord named Deadface Drem strikes a bargain with the biomancers to consolidate and rule all the slums of New Laven, the worlds of Hope and Red come crashing together, and their unlikely alliance takes them further than either could have dreamed possible. 

Hope and Red is the first installment in author Jon Skovron's Empire of Storms trilogy. Hope and Red tells the story of two characters who couldn't be more different. In the Southern Isles, an 8 year old girl lives with her family in a village called Bleak Hope. In a moment, her entire village is massacred by the Emperor's biomancers searching for the next bio weapon to use against its enemies. As the only survivor, the 8 year old girl, now known as Hope, is dropped off at a monastery of warrior monks where Grand Teacher Hurlo spends the next 8 years teaching the girl the art of being a Vinchen warrior. 

Even though it is against the rules, Hurlo sees something in Hope. Hope eagerly consumes knowledge like a sailor who has been at sea way too long. The one thing that is always on Hope's mind, is the desire for revenge against the biomancer who took her family from her. After 8 years of training, and a sword called Song of Sorrows given to her by her master, Hope makes her way to a ship called The Lady's Gambit. Captain Carmichael takes the young Hope aboard where she makes her presence felt quickly as the ships protector. Even though Hope and Red are on a separate paths, she later joins with Red, Sadie, Nettles, & Filler in an effort to save their home from Imperial Soldiers and biomancers.

Elsewhere, Red lives by the skin of his chin, and the sharpness of his wit every since his parents died. His mother was a brilliant artist, while his father was a prostitute. Red lives between worlds. He is book smart, but he revels in being with the men and women who live in squalor. Taken against his will to serve aboard ship, Red finds himself as Sadie the Goats protege. Red becomes an expert thief, brilliant con artist, and has very unusual red eyes which is where his name comes from. Red's home is Paradise Circle, and things are dark, dreary, and people are disappearing by the dozens. This is a place where a bartender takes the ears of anyone who slights her, and keeps them in a jar. But, it is also home for Red, and Nettles, and Filler, and even Jilly, aka Little Bee.

There is a third character who plays an important role in this story. The characters name is Brigga Lin. Lin is on a desperate search for a new weapon, but becomes something else entirely. A female biomancer. Like the Vinchen, The Book of Secrets forbids female biomancer's. Brigga later joins with Red and Hope in her desire for revenge against the Council of Biomancer's who dissed her very existence. This is a world where the biomancers have everyone in their back pockets, including the Emperor. They truly believe that the dreaded Aukbontar will be invading soon, and in order to stop them in their tracks, they need to build weapons by experimenting on people. 

One can mix up cult classics like Oliver Twist, Pirates of the Caribbean, Gangs of New York, and Kill Bill to come up with Hope and Red. Hope and Red really does hit everything that I love in Epic Fantasy novels. There is action throughout the book, moments of quiet solitude where the characters really have to piece together plans to survive a bloody battle, a hint of romance that doesn't take away from the darkness, and vulgarity of certain languages that I may not like, but considering the setting, I am willing to ignore it. The only down side is the heart breaking cliffhanger ending that had me eagerly requesting book # 2 from my library.

The Empire of Storms

Hope and Red

Bane and Shadow

Blood and Tempest

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