Book Review: Storm Siren

Storm Siren by Mary Weber
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Publication Date: August 2014
Source: Netgalley review copy

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?

I don't think this story was necessarily bad, but something about it just didn't click for me. I the the plot idea was fine. The characters all seemed well thought out. I just didn't connect with either the characters or the story.

And there were a couple of quirks that the writer had, that once I noticed seemed to happen every few pages and really drew me out of the story. The most noticeable was the counting. The narrator would say something like: I took one, two, three steps over towards him.

Also, this being the second in my recent reading history to be written in first person, present tense, I've realized I don't care for that style of writing.

Still, as I said, this is not a bad book. There are some interesting things going on, and some good twists and turns. It just wasn't for me, and I won't be continuing with the series.