Storm Siren by Mary Weber {review + giveaway}

Storm Siren
by Mary Weber
♦publisher: Thomas Nelson Books
♦release date: August 19, 2014
♦hardcover, 320 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦series: The Storm Siren Trilogy, book 1
♦source: purchased

In a world at war, a slave girl’s lethal curse could become one kingdom’s weapon of salvation. If the curse—and the girl—can be controlled.

As a slave in the war-weary kingdom of Faelen, seventeen-year-old Nym isn’t merely devoid of rights, her Elemental kind are only born male and always killed at birth — meaning, she shouldn’t even exist.

Standing on the auction block beneath smoke-drenched mountains, Nym faces her fifteenth sell. But when her hood is removed and her storm-summoning killing curse revealed, Nym is snatched up by a court advisor and given a choice: be trained as the weapon Faelen needs to win the war, or be killed.

Choosing the former, Nym is unleashed into a world of politics, bizarre parties, and rumors of an evil more sinister than she’s being prepared to fight . . . not to mention the handsome trainer whose dark secrets lie behind a mysterious ability to calm every lightning strike she summons.

But what if she doesn’t want to be the weapon they’ve all been waiting for?

Set in a beautifully eclectic world of suspicion, super abilities, and monsters, Storm Siren is a story of power. And whoever controls that power will win.

Review: This world has mesmerized me. Gorgeous writing, at times raw and edgy and even a bit gory, and at others so lyrical that it reads like poetry.  With emotions that are expressed in wild storms, friendships that will absolutely capture your heart, and a slow simmering and dangerous romance, Storm Siren is irresistible.
 
Nym is an incredible character with a great wit about her; she's courageous but also terrified of her own uncontrollable elemental powers.  We get glimpses into her psyche through the nightmarish flashbacks of the moment when she first began to consider herself a monster.  The people that she's hurt weigh heavily on her conscious and there are sensitive touches on the emotions behind cutting and self-mutilation, as Nym carves memoirs of her victims on her skin.  And while she fears how she might be used to win the war, the thought of finally having control over her own powers and not hurting so many innocent people is too tempting to pass up.

I loved the world-building.  It felt meticulously detailed with castles, creatures, different lands, and also different powers. I easily envisioned man-eating horses, garish colorful ballgowns, looming airships, powers that crack open the earth and heal it just as easily...so much uniqueness and interest to this story.  New intriguing characters were constantly being thrown into the mix, while the main group of characters are given hefty doses of personality and enough background to really get a feel for them.  Breck and Colin are such fun and Eogan is both sharp-tongued enough to match Nym's own wit, and gentle-hearted enough to make their alternating moments of annoyance and tense attraction feel genuine.

The ending is a wild roller coaster of violence and heroism as the story comes to a head, some really horrific revelations are made, and I think my heart may have actually cracked in two on the very last page. It's going to be torture, torture, waiting to see what happens next.

Find Mary Weber online: Website  •  Twitter  •  Facebook

Purchase Storm Siren:  Indiebound  •  BookDepository  •  Amazon

You shouldn't miss this one!  So I'm giving one copy away :) 

Open internationally!
•must be 13 or older
•ends 3/4/15

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