Release Day Review: Stormsong by C.L. Polk

Stormsong
(The Kingston Cycle #2)
C.L. Polk
Release: February 11, 2020
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After spinning an enthralling world in Witchmark, praised as a "can't-miss debut" by Booklist, and as "thoroughly charming and deftly paced" by the New York Times, C. L. Polk continues the story in Stormsong. Magical cabals, otherworldly avengers, and impossible love affairs conspire to create a book that refuses to be put down.

Dame Grace Hensley helped her brother Miles undo the atrocity that stained her nation, but now she has to deal with the consequences. With the power out in the dead of winter and an uncontrollable sequence of winter storms on the horizon, Aeland faces disaster. Grace has the vision to guide her parents to safety, but a hostile queen and a ring of rogue mages stand in the way of her plans. There's revolution in the air, and any spark could light the powder. What's worse, upstart photojournalist Avia Jessup draws ever closer to secrets that could topple the nation, and closer to Grace's heart.

Can Aeland be saved without bloodshed? Or will Kingston die in flames, and Grace along with it?

Review:
My favorite book of 2018 was Witchmark by C.L. Polk and the first thing I did after finishing it was look up if there was going to be more books in the series. That being said, I feel like I have been waiting 84 years for this sequel instead of the year and half it's been. It was totally worth the wait!

Going into this book I wasn't sure I was going to like it. I didn't hate Grace at the end of Witchmark but I didn't love her either. She has a lot to make up for with how she treated her brother but she made a lot of headway with helping Miles and Tristan disable the aether network. I'm so happy that I can say loved Stormsong almost just as much as I did Witchmark. They are two very different books but they are perfect foils for each other and they just make you want more from this series.

While Witchmark focused more on the magic and the people of Aeland, Stormsong concentrates more on the politics and could be classified as a magical political thriller. The whole book is wonderfully thrilling, terribly romantic, and more than a bit magical. I loved that it is written from Grace’s perspective. It helps us to understand why she did some of the things she did in the first book and it lets us see a different side of Aeland. As much as I love Miles, we saw only a very small portion of Aeland from his point of view and that was mostly the soldiers he was treating and the lower social classes. He doesn’t have to think or deal with the political ramifications of his actions, while Grace does. She is always thinking about what affect her actions will have on her political career and how they could better help her country.

I didn't think it was possible for me to fall in love with Grace but C.L. Polk made me fall head over heels for her in this book. Grace is an exceedingly competent mage and political leader who is more than a bit unsure of her place and what she wants out of life and more than a little lonely. This book was a political thriller but it was also a book about relationships and becoming the person you want to be. 

At the first of this book, Grace doesn't know who she wants to be. All she knows is what she's been groomed to be and what she's expected to do to uphold the family legacy. It's also a book about her relationships. Mainly the relationships with her father, Miles, her Queen, and Avia. I loved the amount of Miles and Tristan in this story and how much we got to learn about them through Grace's eyes! But her relationship with Miles is still developing and changing from what it was before Miles ran off to join the army. Her relationships with her father and the royal family are complex and I loved how C.L. Polk approached both of them.

As for the relationship with Avia, I adored the romance between the two! Like everything in this book, it was almost the complete opposite of the romance between Miles and Tristan. While theirs was a slow-burn between two strangers who met and then fell in love, Avia and Grace have known each other for a long time even if they weren't friends. They ran in the same social circles until Avia was tossed out and disowned by her father. The mutual attraction between the two was always there, but neither ever acted on it. I loved watching them come together despite several events and secrets that tried to keep them apart!

I wholeheartedly loved this book and already know it's going to be one of my top ten books of the year. My one and only complaint is that the ending is a bit abrupt. It ends kind of on a cliffhanger in the middle of the action and I just need more! Not all of the loose ends are tied up and things have been setup for a third book which hasn't been announced to my knowledge but which I am now dying to get my hands on. I really, really need there to be a third book because if the series ends like that with no other books I will riot. I'm hoping C.L. Polk will pull a Rainbow Rowell and announce the third book around when Stormsong releases. For now, I’m going to be over here preparing myself for another long wait in between books.

ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley

    

  5 / 5 Stars

Book #3: Winter- Read a Book with Snow on the Cover

 

My reviews of other books in this series:
Witchmark by C.L. Polk