Rebecca Yarros recently came out with “Onyx Storm” on Jan. 21. This is the newest edition to the Empyrean series, a series following Dragon Riders training in war college to protect Navarre.
This highly anticipated romance-fantasy is the third book in the Empyrean series and takes place at the Basgiath War College during the war with the venin. The venin are humans who have been altered by wielding dark and forbidden magic that drains from the earth of its power. The venin drains the earth and kills anyone in their way which is why a cure is needed. It follows the protagonist Violet on her journey to find a cure for the Venin and defeat them to save the continent of Amaralys whilst also navigating her way around maintaining relationships while being in a leadership role.
Overall, I loved this book. It was just as good as the first two books and did not disappoint. The book was fairly fast-paced and the tension between Violet and Xaden was so good. Xaden is the Duke of Tyrenndor and is Violet’s soulmate. Ever since Xaden turned Venin, he got closed off by putting up his shields between their bond and refusing to touch her which raised tension between the two. Not only that but we see their relationship grow and you get to see their trust for each other develop as well given their circumstances. One thing I didn’t like about this was that the only thing Xaden cared about was Violet, which was very poor character development for him compared to the other books. There is a lot more to his character than just being in love with Violet, so we should have seen more from him in this book.
We also see a lot of character development from some of the side characters such as Ridoc and Aaric. In “Fourth Wing” and “Iron Flame” Ridoc and Aaric are mainly just side characters and there isn’t much known about them. But in this book we learn a lot more about both of them, and they have more important roles. For instance, Ridoc was just the funny squad mate in the first two books, but now we get to see him protecting Violet and more of his serious side. And as for Aaric, we get to see more of his personality show and we learn some new information about him as well. These characters are seen in more chapters and have a bigger role in helping Violet find her second dragon’s (Andarna) kind.
Lastly, we get to go all over the map and explore the world. In the last book, they were mainly in Aretia, Basgiath, and Samara. But in this book Violet not only goes all over the continent, but she also explores new islands and cities. It was really interesting to see new places that Violet has never been before and see a change. It was also cool to see how different the climate and political systems the continents had from Amaryllis.
Overall, this was an amazing book filled with adventure and plot twists. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who loves fantasy and has read the first two books in the Empyrean series.
4.5/5
