Siren’s Fury by Mary Weber

Siren's Fury by Mary Weber
Published on June 2nd 2015
Pages: 352
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"I thrust my hand toward the sky as my voice begs the Elemental inside me to waken and rise. But it's no use. The curse I've spent my entire life abhorring—the thing I trained so hard to control—no longer exists."
Nym has saved Faelen only to discover that Draewulf stole everything she valued. Now he’s destroyed her Elemental storm-summoning ability as well.
When Nym sneaks off with a host of delegates to Bron, Lord Myles offers her the chance for a new kind of power and the whispered hope that it may do more than simply defeat the monster she loathes. But the secrets the Bron people have kept concealed, along with the horrors Draewulf has developed, may require more than simply harnessing a darker ability.
They may require who she is.
Set against the stark metallic backdrop of the Bron kingdom, Nym is faced with the chance to change the future.
Or was that Draewulf’s plan for her all along?

Last year I tried to read Siren’s Fury but ended up putting it down halfway through for a few reasons.

• Back then I didn’t have a co-blogger, so I needed new content and this book was taking too long for me to read.
• Literally nothing had happened in the plot except that my girl Nym had stowed away on an airship.
• I was utterly, utterly BORED. I am not one to say lightly that a book suffers from ‘middle book syndrome’ but by the gods NOW I UNDERSTAND.

I put it aside with the plan that I’d pick it back up again once I had more time. That was now.

Unfortunately I can’t say that this book was worth finishing.

First of all, what I loved about the first book, Storm Siren, was Nym’s Elemental training and her relationship with her friends and love interest. While we get a repeat of the former (a boring, repetitive, ongoing repeat) we don’t get the latter since all of her friends are dead or otherwise incapacitated.

I found Siren’s Fury to be repetitive, with Nym and her allies talking incessantly about their plan rather than acting on it, being pushed around by guards except for one bizarre moment when Nym was allowed to walk free and obtain new powers that didn’t quite make sense, talking more about the plan, attempting to complete the plan and failing, more talking, more being pushed around, and more failed attempts at the ultimate goal. The plot was so thin it simply repeated itself over and over. I lost count of the number of times she tried to defeat the villain and he simply swept her aside like a naughty puppy, free to give her another chance later one once she’s rested.

Nym was frustrating because she made a lot of ill-considered decisions. She outright ignores advice offered to her, trusts the wrong people, allows herself to be put in bad situations and then feels sorry for herself as she angsts on why she behaved that way.

The loss of her Elemental power was supposed to be a secret, yet she wasn’t treated with the respect such a dangerous prisoner deserves. She was forever reaching for her hidden knives, which was no small movement, and she was forever fighting urges to kill people that had previously kicked her own butt. She was given a new power (if this is so easy, why don’t more people do this?) which she then had to train at, and the rules of her new power weren’t explained. She could pull ability and also possibly air from a person by touching them but also not touching them, she could pull air from a room yet the people she killed that way looked like they’d been attacked by an animal… there was no consistency here. Also Myles’ speech impediment was inconsistent as fuck, too.

Add to this that Nym had a deadline to save her lover and her allies only seemed to make her want to wait for no reason at all. Despite this deadline, there was no tension and no real major conflict. Draewulf the villain isn’t scary at all, in fact he seems to delight in tying threats up rather than killing them, and he loves a good old bantering session giving Nym plenty of time to attempt to defeat him. He’s about as scary as a Disney villain.

And the pacing was all over the place. I was so bored reading this that I had to reward myself every time I finished a few chapters by reading another book I was enjoying.

Why did I do all of this? Why did I bother finishing it if I didn’t like it? Well, Mary Weber blew me away with Book #1 and I have faith something from that book can be recaptured in Book #3.

PS There was a father-son team introduced called Kenan and Kel.

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