Storm Siren by Mary Weber

“I raise my chin as the buyers stare. Yes. Look. You don’t want me. Because, eventually, accidentally, I will destroy you.”

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?


Rating: 2/5 Stars

Cover:

I’m not the biggest fan of having people in the covers, to be honest. It’s just a personal preference of mine.

For one, they don’t really say much besides having a hot girl/guy in some pose and the title. I’m more of an abstract cover girl but in this case, and although I’m still not totally sold out on it because I’m annoyingly stubborn, the cover of Siren Storm does get the point across. We have Nym with her silver-blonde hair, a storm and an ominous forest in the background.

If anything the problem with the cover is that tells us about a strong and powerful girl that controls lightning… and that was something that was missing.

Story:

I picked up Storm Siren because the premise sounded a lot like Shadow and Bone, and in some ways it did… just not like I would have wanted.

Nym is a slave and an Elemental (siren) but her kind are only born males and so they are killed at birth, identified by their white hair. Nym shouldn’t even exist.

Her control of the weather is a gift among her kind, at least when they got to be old enough to have it, but she doesn’t have an actual control over it. The storms and lightening come without a warning, and she can kill anybody without her being able to do anything to stop it.

At a slave auction, when a storm she causes kills her new owner and a little slave girl, Nym is presented with a choice by a strange woman; be delivered to the authorities and executed or train to become a weapon to be used in the ongoing war against the enemy kingdom.

Storm Siren was just “meh” for me. There is nothing about the book that can set it apart from the other thousands of YA novels on the market.

Nym was a frustrating character to read about. She reminded me a lot of Alina from Shadow and Bone, and she was an annoying narrator for me too. Nym doesn’t want to train to become a weapon because she doesn’t want to kill anyone else after the accidental deaths she has caused in her life. Although I could understand her point of view, she took it to an extreme; Nym doesn’t want to kill a few people even though by doing so she could save thousands, millions of lives!

Her reticence became annoying and dumb. Refusing to train and embrace her power was just a plot device to make the book last longer, and that annoyed me to no end. She wants to help, but she doesn’t want to help!! She wants to embrace her power, but the lives she took!!!

Enough already, just settle into a decision and follow through with it.

Besides that, Nym didn’t have any particular characteristic or defining personality trait. Who is this elemental girl that shouldn’t exist? The book kept reminding us just how special Nym was simply because of her status as an Elemental, but that’s all that there is in her character. She’s special because she was “born shuper-speciul” not because she has earned it.

As the plot moved forward (at a snail pace I may add) so did the love story.

Or should I say… love triangle?

Yes, we have the nice guy and the super-hot asshole here.

I didn’t really care for the romance, because I didn’t care about the characters. Despite having my hopes up, there is no Darkling here. The love interests are dull and predictable; one is a super asshole for no reason, and the other is super nice for no reason (Seriously, I wanted to slap Nym a few times and the guy made her sound as if she were perfect)

The world building… was nowhere to be seen. Why were the two kingdoms at war? Why did the people with special abilities were separated geographically? Why did they have special abilities to begin with?

Nothing is ever explained and everything is taken for granted. That’s just not my cup of tea in fantasy; if you are creating a new world, please tell me how it works.

Overall, I would say Storm Siren was average at best, when it wasn’t pissing me off. Romance fans will probably enjoy it, but if you are looking for a good fantasy story this might not be your pick.