The Storm Crow is the first ARC I’ve read after receiving it with the December Fairyloot box. The main character is Thia, a princess, who has sunk into a deep depression since her kingdom was attacked by the Illucians and their legendary crows destroyed. The crows had magical abilities such as the ability to summon lightning and heal people, their kingdom relied on them and suffers greatly without them. Thia finds the last crow egg around the same time she is betrothed against her wishes to the Illucian prince.
This book is amazing – I am so upset that I will have ages to wait before the next one comes out! My favourite character was Thia which isn’t surprising since the whole book is from her perspective. I loved how she found her strength again after everything she had been through, I loved her determination to fight back. I also really liked Prince Ericen, her betrothed. Even when he was first introduced, and he was really horrible I still liked him. I’m hoping to see more of him in the second book and I really want him to be happy!
I think some of the tense scenes were written particularly well, especially the prologue. Starting the book with all the action of the attack was amazing and it really sucked me in. I was only going to read the first chapter, but I couldn’t put it down.
The only thing I would have liked to see more of is relationship development, there’s several romance subplots and I’m a sucker for those scenes. Fingers-crossed I might see more in the next one. I enjoyed the scenes that were in the book though and I think that not having a focus on them was probably appropriate in terms of Thia’s goals. Still some of the relationships would have been more believable if there had been a couple of chapters focusing on their development.
Yet again, I chose to read a book without the second one out, since it was an ARC I did expect to be left in a cliff-hanger, sill I hate it so much. I need to find out what happens to the characters! This was an excellent read, I literally read it in under a day, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy. It had a novel magic system and the way Thia reacted to everything that had happened to her felt very natural.
This book kind of reminded me of the Last Namsara. I’m not sure if I’m just substituting crows for dragons here though! I think Thia and Asha are quite similar characters, both very strong but being manipulated by things out of their control. I gave this book another 5/5! February has been a pretty great reading month so far!
The London Faerie 