Monday, February 29, 2016

Siren's Song by Mary Weber

Siren's Song
by Mary Weber 
Read: February 20 - 24, 2016
Published: March 1st 2016 by Thomas Nelson / HarperCollins
Source: NetGalley (Thanks, HC)
Category: YA, fantasy, elementals 
Series: Storm Siren #3

Description: (spoilers for first 2 books) Nym and Draewulf prepare to face off in a battle destined to destroy more lives than it saves.

With the loss of Tulla still fresh in mind, Rasha’s fate unknown, and Lord Myles taken over by the dark ability, Nym and the few Bron soldiers rush to warn Cashlin’s queen. Only to discover it may already be too late for the monarch and her eerie kingdom. As the Luminescents are sifting through Nym’s past memories and the queen is reading into her future, Nym is given a choice of how to defeat Draewulf, but the cost may be more than she can bear. And even then there are no guarantees.

With that reality burrowing into her bones—along with the guilt of the lives she will sacrifice—Nym returns to her homeland of Faelen to raise an army of peasants through promises of freedom. But when the few friends she has left, along with the world and citizens she loves, are staring down the face of a monster and his undead army, will Nym summon every element her blood is capable of controlling . . . or surrender to a different strength—one of sacrifice?

Because in the end, death may be more merciful for them all.
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Siren's Song is the very anticipated ending to Mary Weber's Storm Siren trilogy. Find my thoughts on Storm Siren and Siren's Fury, linked from their titles. I am thrilled to have all three books in this series together on my shelf, and even more excited because this conclusion did not disappoint. 

5 Thoughts on Siren’s Song -

1) This series begins and end with Nym. She remains my favorite element of this series - did you notice that pun there?☺ - and I’ve loved watching her journey from a frightened, self-loathing girl in a slave market, to a powerful Elemental, filled with love and purpose. This girl does not have an easy road at any point, and in this book, all the stakes are raised again, but she handles everything with so much grace and inner strength. 
I am in awe of her.

2) The story kept me on the edge of my seat. Siren’s Song features a great mix of quieter, more personal scenes, travel, strategy, revelations, and high intensity, high danger moments – mostly involving Draewulf and his scary wraith. I loved getting a broader look at this world, but also going back in Nym's home of Fallen, where the story began. In true Weber fashion, I almost had a heart attack a few times, and the huge climactic scene near the end was super crazy intense, stress inducing and majorly inspiring. The end of the book left me feeling satisfied, but also leaves room for future stories, if the author wants to pursue them.

3) I will never grow tired of watching Eogan and Nym together. I have loved watching the development of Nym’s relationship with Eogan, throughout this entire series. So much delicious tension has built between them from the beginning, and in the final installment, I was thrilled to see them work together throughout nearly the entire book. It is a huge pet peeve of mine when the love interests are separated for most of the final installment, and that was not the case here. 

I love how well Eogan sees and understands Nym, and the way he’s always trying to push her forward and help her realize the strength inside of her. I love how Nym fights for Eogan and won’t let him get away with his own self-doubts. They are supportive of each other, and neither of them is afraid to tell the other when they’re acting like idiots. B
asically, I ate up every moment of their relationship. I only wish that we could have gotten scenes from his POV. (Spoiler) That is, more of them - I really appreciated the moments we got into his head near the end, but there was an earlier section I'd loved to have experienced from his perspective too. Eogan doesn't express his feelings well, so it was a treat to get inside of his thoughts for a bit. (end spoiler).

4) Nym is a better person than I am. I love Nym’s compassionate heart, even to people who don't deserved it. However, I think the hardest part of this book for me was her interactions with Isobel. I just didn’t get Nym’s desire to understand Isobel, or the way Nym kept trying to figure out her past relationship with Eogan, instead of just asking Eogan about it. Basically, I don't like Isobel, and Nym is much kinder than I am. That said, I did think that Nym's compassion towards Lord Myles was much more interesting. I don't think I'll ever like him, but he is one character who has gone through a an evolution throughout the series, and he definitely surprised me in the last book.

5) Although Nym is the heart of this book, this story has a quite a few secondary characters as well. The first of course is Eogan, whom I discussed above. My favorite secondary relationship beyond Eogan was Nym’s friendship with the boy Kel. That kid never failed to bring a smile to my heart. But there were several characters in this book that I wish I could have known better, including King Sedric. I also wish we’d been able to see more of Nym’s friendship with Rasha. This book teases another romance that I did not see coming at all, and I’m not sure it worked for me. I think I needed to hear from their perspective to understand it more (novella?). 

In sum - Siren's Song is a fantastic end to the Storm Siren series. I fell even harder for Nym if that were even possible. I adored her romance with Eogan, and I basically wanted more of all of these characters (except for a few of them). I cannot wait to see what Mary Weber writes next. If you haven't started these yet, it's the perfect time to binge read all three. 

Love Triangle Factor: None
Cliffhanger Scale: Series End

2 comments:

  1. I haven't read the second book in this trilogy yet but I'm so glad to see that the series doesn't disappoint! I'll definitely have to make time to binge-read these last two. Lovely review, Lauren--thanks for being such a huge fan of these books and getting them into my hands. I feel as if this is a series that falls under the radar, unfortunately, but it absolutely shouldn't.

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  2. Yaaay :D I'm so glad that you loved this final book Lauren. <3 That is the best. Ah. I love Nym too. And yay for the romance being good in this one :) Sigh. I really need to read it soon too :D I'm just nervous that I don't remember anything from the first two books, lol. But ahh. You make it sound so good. I can't wait to read it too :) Hope I will love it as well. <3 Thank you for sharing sweetie :)

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