Fight the Storm.
The endless rotstorm rages over the ruins of the Ferron Empire. Floré would never let the slavers of the Empire rise again. As a warrior of the Stormguard Commandos, she wrought horrors in the rotstorm to protect her people. She did her duty and left the bloodshed behind.
Fight for your family.
Floré’s peace is shattered when blazing orbs of light cut through the night sky and descend on her village. Her daughter is abducted and Floré is forced into a chase across a land of twisted monsters and ancient gods. She must pursue the mysterious orbs, whose presence could herald the return of the Empire she spent her entire life fighting.
Destroy your enemies.
Now, Floré must take up the role she had sworn to put aside and become the weapon the Stormguard trained her to be, to save not only her daughter, but her people…
Ian Green is a writer from Northern Scotland with a PhD in epigenetics. His fiction has been widely broadcast and performed, including winning the BBC Radio 4 Opening Lines competition and winning the Futurebook Future Fiction prize. His short fiction has been published by Londnr, Almond Press, OpenPen, Meanjin, Transportation Press, The Pigeonhole, No Alibi Press, Minor Lits, and more. Twitter Website
My thoughts: I really enjoyed this book, I liked Florè a lot – she’s determined, dedicated and tough, but I liked her two cadets, Cuss and Yselda, even more. They’re completely out of their depths but going on regardless because it’s what their captain would want. Fighting goblins and crow-men, meeting species’ they’ve only heard stories about; their mission will take them a long way from the quiet village they grew up in.
The concept was really interesting too – the endless rot storm caused by a battle between gods and the judgment of the final one standing. The way the rot changes people, the insistence that there is “no trial for rot-folk”. The long history of enmity and a fallen empire that once enslaved so many.
The magic system was entirely new – the idea of a pattern behind the universe felt familiar but the way it’s wielded as a weapon – to create fire, and interestingly salt, was clever. The fact that the whitestaffs see it in a different light – studying it and following it rather than applying it directly, was good too – setting up a conflict perhaps in books to come. The twists as the book ends – I need to know what that final scene means!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 