Riot Of Storm And Smoke Review

This time I'm reviewing Riot of Storm and Smoke by Jennifer Ellison. (This is the second in the series, so there are bound to be spoilers if you haven't read the first book.)

Bree flees from the king that set in motion the chain of events that killed her father and made Bree his most sought after weapon. Caden, the prince, has his own set of woes when his father turns against him. Escaping with barely his life, he races to amass an army to fight his father's tyranny. Meanwhile Bree rushes to Nereidium, the kingdom that holds more for her than she wants to acknowledge.

As much as I absolutely loved the first book, I sadly didn't feel quite the same about this one. I felt rather bored throughout this book. It just didn't have the suspense or pacing that the first one had. I could easily put this book down (and I did for a whole month) after getting halfway through it. I still highly recommend this series, but it just wasn't as spectacular as the first.

I really did loved the story of this book. However, some elements in it seemed a bit random and others don't seem to be fully explained. I felt the plot dragged on a bit. Only after halfway did I finally start to get excited about this book. I still love the concepts and the world of it. I'm also excited to see where it goes in the next book.

I wished Bree's development could have been pushed a bit further. She comes out of the first book dealing with some pretty big things, but I don't feel like she really dealt with any of it. I wished her struggle with Throwing had a better explanation and not as sudden of a shift near the end. She really seems like much the same person at the start of this book and the end.

I enjoyed getting chapters in Caden's perspective, but I sometimes confused him with Bree. His voice didn't always sound very unique. I also got pretty bored with his chapters. It was nice to learn about what he was doing because it added more dimension to the book, but at the same time, I almost wanted to skip his chapters.

There is a cliffhanger at the end of this book, but I was okay with it, mostly because that was the moment I had waited for the whole book. I was so happy that it finally happened that I didn't freak out over the fact it left us hanging. If anything, the cliffhanger just made me super excited for the next book to come out.

Even though it may not sound like it, I really did love this book. The story is something I've very much enjoyed overall. The world is very well thought out and is a great backdrop to this series. The writing is rich and descriptive. I'm really looking forward to the next book in this series and can't wait till it's released.