Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Wings of Fury by Emily R. King


Title:
Wings of Fury

Author: Emily R. King
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Wings of Fury # 1
Paperback, 302 pages
Publication: March 1, 2021 by 47North
Source:
I received a review copy from WunderKind PR in exchange for a honest review.
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Cronus, God of Gods, whose inheritance is the world. Among his possessions: women, imprisoned and fated to serve. The strong-minded Althea Lambros controls her own fate and lives to honor her dying mother’s plea to protect her two sisters at all costs. Althea’s journey toward crushing the tyranny has begun. It is a destiny foretold by the Fates. And she is following their visions.

On the southern isle of Crete, hidden among mortal women who have fled the Titans, is the Boy God, son of Cronus and believed dead. He shares Althea’s destiny to vanquish the Almighty—fate willing. Because Cronus has caught wind of the plot. He’s amassing his own forces against Althea’s righteous rebellion and all those who will no longer surrender or run. There will be war. If she’s to survive to write their history, the indomitable Althea must soar higher than any god.

My Thoughts

Greek mythology is back y’all. I remember Greek mythos was all the rage in YA and Middle Grade back around 2010. And I honestly haven’t encounter many Greek mythology inspired novels since then, that is until now with King’s Wings of Fury. Wings of Fury is a coming of age and self-discovery story of Althea Lambros. As with most heroine in a story, Althea is destined for greatness and on her journey to greatness she is prophesied to bring down the tyrannical Titan Cronus with the help of The Boy God.

Many Greek inspired novels are centered on the Gods and Goddess. I love that Wings of Fury took a different route and focused on the Titan…and womanhood. This past year it was all about girl power and femininity taking center stage and Wings of Fury is no exception. Althea is a very independent and headstrong character. While she is the middle child of three sisters, she is a true lioness when it came to protecting her family and those she cared about.

I love that we were right besides Althea as she set out to discover herself, not only her true identity but what she’s capable of. Even a tribe of so-called warrior women was not match for Althea, she didn’t back down to any man, woman or god. I liked her fieriness. However, the supporting cast wasn’t as interesting as our lead. While Theo and Zeus played an important role and I enjoyed their banter, they easily faded into the background. And Althea’s sisters were sadly the least memorable of the cast. I never connected with them and hope the sequel will heavily focused just on the trio: Althea, Theo and Zeus.

Overall Wings of Fury was a solid start to a brand new series. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to seeing more titans and gods and what King has in store for Althea. If you like female, feminist driven novels with a dose of Greek mythology then Wings of Fury is for you. It’s a fairy short novel that offered a few hours of escapism. Which was exactly what I needed.

 


 


Thursday, March 18, 2021

On the Edge by Ilona Andrews

Title: On the Edge
Author: Ilona Andrews
Genre: Fantasy
Series: The Edge # 1
MM Paperback, 309 pages
Publication: September 29, 2009 by Ace
Source: Personal Library

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Rose Drayton lives on the Edge, between the world of the Broken (where people drive cars, shop at Wal-Mart, and magic is a fairy tale) and the Weird (where blueblood aristocrats rule, changelings roam, and the strength of your magic can change your destiny). Only Edgers like Rose can easily travel from one world to the next, but they never truly belong in either.

Rose thought if she practiced her magic, she could build a better life for herself. But things didn’t turn out how she planned, and now she works a minimum wage, off the books job in the Broken just to survive. Then Declan Camarine, a blueblood noble straight out of the deepest part of the Weird, comes into her life, determined to have her (and her power).

But when a terrible danger invades the Edge from the Weird, a flood of creatures hungry for magic, Declan and Rose must work together to destroy them—or they’ll devour the Edge and everyone in it.

One small misstep could lead to disaster. But for Aurelia, facing disaster is easy; it’s relationships that are hard.

My Thoughts

Before Ilona Andrews blew up, they wrote a Paranormal Romance series Called On the Edge. I read it when it was first published in 2009 when I got into the genre. Oddly enough, I never wrote a review for it and didn’t remember much about the book/series. So I decided to do a reread and I must say, I think I enjoyed it more now than I did before.  

On the Edge introduces readers to Rose, a powerful magic wielder who resides in-between The Weird and The Broken with her grandmother and two younger siblings. The world is divided up into The Weird, Edge and The Broken. The Edge is full of Magic and aristocratic magical families and The Broken is the opposite, no magic and normal people that don’t know magic exist. Life is pretty hard for Rose. She in her early twenties working a dead-end job to provide for her family living paycheck to paycheck. But her life gets turned upside down when Declan, a handsome blue-blood appears in her life and propositions her for marriage. To win her hand Declan must complete 3 tasks of Rose’s choosing. Oh, and to top it all off there’s evil hounds hunting Rose’s family.

Another reviewer compared On The Edge to Andrews more well-known novel, Burn for Me from The Hidden Legacy series and they’re spot on! On the Edge truly did feel like a test run with similar character traits and world-building. The only difference is The Edge series followed a different couple each novel while Hidden Legacy followed one. I really liked Rose and Declan. Rose was a typical Andrews heroine, she’s pretty kick-ass, powerful, sassy and relatable. Declan is also typical alpha male…seeing a definite pattern between other series heroes like Curran and Rogan lol.

As I said before, I enjoyed On the Edge much more after a second read. So much so, that I want to read the rest of the series since I never finished. Over all a solid Paranormal Romance which much to like. The ending was absolutely adorable, forgot about that little twist! I highly recommend this lesser-known Andrews series if you haven’t read it yet.