Hello everyone!
Or at least, a sequel to a book we read a little bit back, and which will conclude with the third part coming in early 2024.
Yep, yep indeed this is a slated trilogy, and I'm here for it, because one of my personal pet peeves is when you think you have it down pat - you've blocked out reading time, you know how and when and why - and then all of a sudden it's not a trilogy but it's ballooned into eight books.
I'm sorry, what now?
I mean OKAY I do get it, sometimes stories happen that way and you don't really see where it's going until you're on book three and you haven't told even half the story yet, but most of the time lately it just feels like expansion for expansion's sake not for plot's sake.
This one will hopefully stay a trilogy, it's definitely sounding like it.
So let's get our goggles and our best Ariel voice, because Tides of Torment are taking us both above and under water!
Links to previous related works can be found at the bottom of the page, as per usual.
Now if you remember, the first book - Seeds of Sorrow - is basically a loose retelling of Hades and Persephone. Now in this second one, Tides of Torment, we're handling the affairs of the middle brother, Travion, who is supposedly a loose interpretation of Poseidon (I'll explain why supposedly towards the end of the post).
Travion is the guy who very nearly croaks at the end of book one, but he makes a full recovery and HIS story actually begins about a hundred years before all the action, when he enters an arranged betrothal with a woman named Sereia, who apparently couldn't care less that she's been engaged to the king of their little kingdom.
They do draw closer, however, and all looks to be well until he proposes, but before he can even finish, she gives him a dramatically broken-hearted look and jumps off a cliff into the sea.
Oh yeah, spoiler alert: her affinity is water.
After she destroys his ship when he chases her, Travion decides to hell with this, and goes back home. In the hundred years since, Sereia has become a pirate captain a la Robin Hood who steals only from the rich to give back to the poor, but she goes a little cray-cray hearing about the attack and that someone possibly died. You know, one of the three supposedly immortal brother-kings?
Racing back home, she not only finds Travion alive and well, but she catches him mid-ball which he's hosting to reassure his people all's well that end's well (not that it's true, as Sereia can attest because ... welp she had to deal with a huge ass kraken that Davy Jones apparently brought back to life, or something).
She then has the audacity to be insulted and angry he's dancing with "the queen" and spits out some insults just because she can, and apparently the only reason Draven doesn't incinerate her on the spot (Travion was dancing with Eden, natch) is because ... it's her? I'll admit, this is the lamest excuse of all excuses and incredibly poor characterization. I'd put it on the same level of Crispin Cole retaining his white cloak after the wedding disaster.
Anyhow, Travion and Sereia go at it like bunnies any chance they have of being alone throughout this book, and it begins right at this ball, so let's leave it at that. We have bigger issues to deal with.
Namely, there's attacks coming in from the sea and Travion has to deal with them. Because half of his armada is lost, he decides to set sail himself, and Sereia goes along with him since she's the only one who's fought one of the beasts and survived. Along the way, he explains to her they're chasing the Book of Creation, basically, which should have stayed buried, but someone unearthed and is apparently now using to make monsters bigger and more difficult to kill.
During this chase they fight, in order: a giant sea serpent, giant crabs (because the guy from Moana has relatives and they're aaaaaaangry) and, on the way back, giant sharks. Knowing there's a Meg sequel incoming didn't make me love them any more, I'll tell you that much.
Through all this, they pick up a Fae healer in one of the desolate villages and two pages from the Book - along with the traitor.
Remember how, in the first book, it's implied Draven should know who it is because, after drinking the accused's blood, he recognized them? That doesn't actually happen BUT we learn it's Travion's steward, who's spouting some nonsense about the Old Ways, aka the ways when Travion's father was the be all and end all.
You know, the guy based on Kronos, of all entities? In this series, he locks his two eldest sons in the dungeons to torture them and pit them against each other so that he can force their powers into the open, so he really isn't going for any awards here, and yet somehow someone out there convinced people that they WANT a ruler like that back on the throne.
It's not exactly a premise I'd expect anyone to support, so I'd like to see a really good explanation as to WHY people seem to be going for it, because the way it's explained is that the Old Ways are cruel, the ruler is a dictator, and every small infraction means certain death.
Appealing, no?
Anyway, back to the story, Travion's ship goes down on the way back, though he survives, and they're racing back to his kingdom because said kingdom (currently protected by his nephew) is under attack, and this is the BEST part of the book because it's all hands on deck trying to destroy the creatures that're attacking.
Including Kraken Boi.
Sereia and her crew align with the royal forces and it's a joint effort to turn that thing into edible calamari, but the fight isn't over yet.
Because a woman - the other person always whispered about in connection to the Book - is spotted on the volcanic island across the bay, so Travion heads on over there, closely followed by Sereia because she needs to be where he is. He declares his love to her right before all the shit hits the fan, so now she knows that they can make this work, ergo she needs to be there.
And, SURPRISE!
If the first two brothers are Hades and Poseidon, then the last one is, naturally, Zeus. And if you know your Greek mythology, you'll know Zeus is The Womanizer, so is it any shock at all that the woman who has the Book is his original betrothed he was SUPPOSED to marry, before he spurned her over the wife (Hera resembling) he actually chose?
And per the story, the Book was actually made for this scorned woman's family, gifted to the royals in advance, because she was going to marry into it anyway, so now she just wants it back - and apparently wants revenge, though she's also written as partly cray-cray so, I'm not ENTIRELY sure what it is she wants.
Either way, this is the shocking part, where Sereia's killed, and Travion barters away the Book in exchange for her life - but at least he gets to marry her, promote her to Admiral of his navy, before the wedding gets crashed Maleficent style with an announcement of upcoming war.
That's coming in book three, by the way, so you BEST believe I'll be here for it.
And, yes, I received an advance review copy from BookSirens for free.
A handful of pages in, I realized that I am DECIDEDLY wrong as far as target audience for the book goes, because Sereia managed to make me roll my eyes, facepalm, and then absolutely loathe her all in the span of pages. I mean come on, she jumps off a cliff, probably destroys her lover's ship, then acts like she has any say about him whatsoever and insults an actual queen.
Still, this is a story I was interested in, so I pushed that aside. And in fairness, Sereia as a character, when she's a pirate captain, when she's doing things that help direct or control the action and narrative, and when she drops the holier-than-thou attitude, is reasonably likeable and I could have gotten to enjoy her presence on the page. Unfortunately, however, she's allowed for some reason that makes no sense to me to insult the royal family, turn her nose up at them, or get incensed/insulted when someone points out the truth which she happens to dislike.
So she's a hit-and-miss for me. I'm also confused as to why SHE gets the powers she does, instead of Travion, who seems to have gotten an amalgamation of some of Poseidon's surface powers as well as Zeus' weather manipulation. I understand that the point is these two have to rule together but, I'm not sure why such a huge deviation had to happen.
Overall, Travion is a likeable guy, as he was back in the first book, and we do expand a little bit on the past here in this one which helps explain some things that will lead to the trilogy's conclusion next February. I will say that the action sequences are done very well, I loved the battle descriptions and in particular all the nautical situations our characters find themselves in.
The bones of the story were good. The characters, however, were confusing at times. Because not only did the heroine for some reason not communicate right from the start, but she seems to actually be surprised that the king courting her will lead to a proposal to be his queen? That's ... usually how it works? On the flip side, Travion suddenly wakes up one day and theorizes how Sereia probably wouldn't look at him the same if he shared his deepest, darkest self with her.
This one in particular seems to come from nowhere on a pretty disconnected point. I'm not sure WHERE it originates, because it's also inserted in between two action packed sea adventures, and no real build up to it. A lot of what I'd call character motivation is like this, however, kind of plopped in rather roughly, like the pieces FIT, but just not smoothly.
I'm intrigued by Phaedora, who I'd guess is a sort of combination of Phaedra and Pandora, maybe? I'm also intrigued by the infernal book and how Zryian is going to fix the mess that's now here, and the war that's on the royal family's doorstep. I'm DEFINITELY here for that. And whoever said no harm could ever come from reading a book ... HA HA! Think again lol.
So overall, this was a good read for me, but unfortunately the heroine and some of the decisions didn't cut it. It's very quick though, non complicated, and sucks you into the action before you can snap your fingers. If you've read Draven and Eden's book, I'd suggest picking this one up as well before Wages of War's upon us.
A handful of pages in, I realized that I am DECIDEDLY wrong as far as target audience for the book goes, because Sereia managed to make me roll my eyes, facepalm, and then absolutely loathe her all in the span of pages. I mean come on, she jumps off a cliff, probably destroys her lover's ship, then acts like she has any say about him whatsoever and insults an actual queen.
Still, this is a story I was interested in, so I pushed that aside. And in fairness, Sereia as a character, when she's a pirate captain, when she's doing things that help direct or control the action and narrative, and when she drops the holier-than-thou attitude, is reasonably likeable and I could have gotten to enjoy her presence on the page. Unfortunately, however, she's allowed for some reason that makes no sense to me to insult the royal family, turn her nose up at them, or get incensed/insulted when someone points out the truth which she happens to dislike.
So she's a hit-and-miss for me. I'm also confused as to why SHE gets the powers she does, instead of Travion, who seems to have gotten an amalgamation of some of Poseidon's surface powers as well as Zeus' weather manipulation. I understand that the point is these two have to rule together but, I'm not sure why such a huge deviation had to happen.
Overall, Travion is a likeable guy, as he was back in the first book, and we do expand a little bit on the past here in this one which helps explain some things that will lead to the trilogy's conclusion next February. I will say that the action sequences are done very well, I loved the battle descriptions and in particular all the nautical situations our characters find themselves in.
The bones of the story were good. The characters, however, were confusing at times. Because not only did the heroine for some reason not communicate right from the start, but she seems to actually be surprised that the king courting her will lead to a proposal to be his queen? That's ... usually how it works? On the flip side, Travion suddenly wakes up one day and theorizes how Sereia probably wouldn't look at him the same if he shared his deepest, darkest self with her.
This one in particular seems to come from nowhere on a pretty disconnected point. I'm not sure WHERE it originates, because it's also inserted in between two action packed sea adventures, and no real build up to it. A lot of what I'd call character motivation is like this, however, kind of plopped in rather roughly, like the pieces FIT, but just not smoothly.
I'm intrigued by Phaedora, who I'd guess is a sort of combination of Phaedra and Pandora, maybe? I'm also intrigued by the infernal book and how Zryian is going to fix the mess that's now here, and the war that's on the royal family's doorstep. I'm DEFINITELY here for that. And whoever said no harm could ever come from reading a book ... HA HA! Think again lol.
So overall, this was a good read for me, but unfortunately the heroine and some of the decisions didn't cut it. It's very quick though, non complicated, and sucks you into the action before you can snap your fingers. If you've read Draven and Eden's book, I'd suggest picking this one up as well before Wages of War's upon us.
xx
*image not mine
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