Hunted across the True Sea, haunted by the lives she took on the Fold, Alina must try to make a life with Mal in an unfamiliar land. She finds starting new is not easy while keeping her identity as the Sun Summoner a secret. She can’t outrun her past or her destiny for long.
The Darkling has emerged from the Shadow Fold with a terrifying new power and a dangerous plan that will test the very boundaries of the natural world. With the help of a notorious privateer, Alina returns to the country she abandoned, determined to fight the forces gathering against Ravka. But as her power grows, Alina slips deeper into the Darkling’s game of forbidden magic, and farther away from Mal. Somehow, she will have to choose between her country, her power, and the love she always thought would guide her--or risk losing everything to the oncoming storm.
With every second book we can make some assumptions. A love connection made in the previous book will fall to tatters. The protagonist will doubt his/her power and one character will have a complete and incredibly sudden personality overhaul. Admittedly all of these happen in Siege and Storm but then again, it works.
I feel like all these 'Second Book Syndrome' constructions authors use over and over until readers are so tired of them, we beat ourselves in the face with the book (hopefully it's a paperback.) are all used because this is what they hope to achieve. They want to clinging to the edge of my seat, is everything going to come together? jump up and down with excitement feeling that we get when this structure works and goddamn does it work!
Naturally Mal and Alina struggle to make there relationship work but to be fair even in the first book I didn't feel like their relationship would be easy. She starts off too insecure, too grateful that he would want to be with her and he enjoys being the powerful and attractive one. No relationship can work without both people having the opportunity to grow and change. So of course once Alina becomes incredibly powerful and sought after and busy, Mal stamps his feet about it. There's this beautiful scene where they argue and he asks her to go back to who she was before everything happened she says she can't and he says if she could,would she give it up?...and she refuses. This doesn't seem like a beautiful scene but there is a certain elegance for standing up for yourself and this really marked a crucial moment for them I thought. After that and the kiss with Zoya, their relationship will never be the same, who knows for better or worse?
Speaking of Zoya, personality overhaul anyone? She very much the Celeste (The Selection by Kiera Cass) of this series. She stunningly gorgeous and of course all the men want her but she also a raging anti-other women bitch...apparently. I feel that woman have a tendency to be demonised by other women in fiction and it annoys the crap out of me. And then suddenly that character has to have some "development" and stops being a total A-Hole. The girl who always followed the Darkling wasn't even invited to join him and so he just murdered her family by expanding The Fold? It all just seemed a little unbelievable for me but then again it was also nice to have someone to fight against Alina in this book. Not in the same way the Darkling does but someone on her side who won't put up with her crap and Zoya definitely fit the bill.
Then we have the visions Alina keeps having of the Darkling that make her doubt her power. She takes a second amplifier, from an awesome Water Dragon might I add, and starts seeing him everywhere and feeling him and basically begins to doubt her own abilities to own all the amplifiers and still, control her powers without losing her mind. You wanna know why this worked? because it wasn't the main plot, this was no Spiderman 2, all based around doubt. This was Alina getting ready to go to war and feeling scared, worrying about letting people down and failing. It was a small narrative within the larger narrative and it really, really worked.
This second book also came with what might be some of my favourite new characters. We have awesome fighting, sun saint warriors Tolya and Tamar. I've always been a sucker for a really badass girl who just shows up to beat the crud out of people, but pair her with a smart Hodor-esque twin and I'm in. You had me at Hodor. Then we have Nikolai who is just utterly the most charming character I have ever read. I adore him and ship him and Alina so hard I may burst a blood vessel. The only problem is I don't trust him, with the whole Darkling switch up in the first book I'm now looking at everything about new characters and seeing them as signs they are evil. This book has given me serious trust issues.
Now, because this plot was so good I am not going to tell you what happens, I know without a doubt that people read these reviews even when they haven't read the book and I so don't want to spoil you on how it all turns out, just dear god read them, they are really incredible pieces of literature and my heart was pumping so hard all the way through. This is a very exciting series and it takes you in so many directions and just throws emotion and world building and beautiful, real characters at you in one 300 paged shot to the brain. Read it.
Happy Reading.
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