Heir of Thunder by Karissa Laurel
Published: September 26th 2016 by Evolved Publishing
The Lord of Thunder’s sudden death leaves his daughter, Evelyn Stormbourne, unprepared to rule Inselgrau in his place. Weeks before Evie’s ascension to the throne, revolutionaries attack and destroy her home. She conceals her identity and escapes under the protection of her father’s young horse master, Gideon Faust. Together they flee Inselgrau and set sail for the Continent, but they’re separated when a brutal storm washes Evie overboard.
In her efforts to reunite with her protector and reach allies on the Continent, Evie befriends a band of nomads who roam the world in airships fueled by lightning. She also confronts a cabal of dark Magicians plotting to use her powers to create a new divine being, and she clashes with an ancient family who insists her birthright belongs to them.
If she’s to prevail and defeat her enemies, Evie must claim her heritage, embrace her dominion over the sky, and define what it means to be Heir of Thunder.
Note: I received a review copy of this from the author. This in no way influences my opinion.
I am going to be honest, I had never even heard of this book until the author decided to approach me with an email requesting me to review it. I definitely believe in giving all books a chance an decided to go for it. Whilst the blurb sounded quite interesting, and I had high hope for this book, I actually ended up DNFing it about 10% of the way in.
For me, I feel the book started off way too soon. From the beginning of the book we are immediately thrown into this situation in the middle of the night, where an attack is taking place on a house and the occupants are trying to evacuate – mostly the MC, who I assume to be an important person in society. I feel like we needed a chance to get to know the characters just a little bit before being thrown into a situation like this because, at this point, as a reader, I don’t have rapport with the MC, so I don’t really care what happens to her.
I think, because of the fact that the book has started and I have no real relationship with the MC, I struggled to carry on reading thoughout her travels with Gideon. I found myself reading passages more than once and actually putting the book down to do something else because I just lacked interest in what they were doing.
I also felt like the writing style just wasn’t for me. It felt a little dry and lacked something that would keep me hooked in the book. I felt like the MC complained a lot, and didn’t ask any of the things that she wanted to.
Despite the fact that I personally didn’t enjoy this book, it is still a book that YOU might enjoy, so please do consider giving it a shot if the blurb sounds interesting to you! I think that the main issue with this book was that it started off too fast and that relationship that was needed between reader and character just wasn’t there. Without that relationship, there is just nothing to keep me reading the book because I feel no empathy toward the characters or what they are going through. This book is 1 star.
Thank you to the author for approaching me and providing me with a review copy!
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