The Storm Crow (The Storm Crow Series, book 1)
By Kalyn Josephson
Blurb:
In the tropical kingdom of Rhodaire, magical, elemental Crows are part of every aspect of life...until the Illucian empire invades, destroying everything.
That terrible night has thrown Princess Anthia into a deep depression. Her sister Caliza is busy running the kingdom after their mother's death, but all Thia can do is think of all she has lost.
But when Caliza is forced to agree to a marriage between Thia and the crown prince of Illucia, Thia is finally spurred into action. And after stumbling upon a hidden Crow egg in the rubble of a rookery, she and her sister devise a dangerous plan to hatch the egg in secret and get back what was taken from them.
I received this book as an ARC through Decembers FairyLoot Box. I was wary of reading this book because I read other people's reviews and saw that there was trigger warnings of depression and self harm.
I admit there is a trigger warning of depression but I wouldn't really say that there's a trigger warning for self harm. The only bit that could be classed as self harm is when Anthia walks in on the Queen and she has her sleeves up and sees the cuts on her arm. But there's no description on actually cutting herself and it is not because she is suffering with mental health problems. It is just because she believes that if she gives her blood to the goddess she will become stronger. So if anything she only suffers with self belief problems.
This book starts of with Anthia with her aunties crow Iyla, trying to perform a difficult flying move. We get an insight at this point that she has a stronger relationship with her aunty than her mother because her aunty sticks up for her and covers her even though she took her crow without permission.
It is the night of the sky dance when This is able to choose her crow but things change for the worst and Illucia soldiers burn all of the rookerys where the eggs are moments before hatching. This is when Thia's depression starts because she lost her mother and her aunty as they were trying to rescue some of the eggs and protect the castle. Thia also becomes scared of fire at this moment as she tries to put out the flames on her aunty and gets burnt in the process.
So the main part of this story is that there were several types of crows that helped the kingdom of Rhodaire but now that all the crows are dead, Thia and her sister Caliza have to decide on how best to help their kingdom. But Thia is suffering with bad depression and not leaving her bed because she is suffering with grief. Caliza is also struggling because her mother never taught her the true politics of being Queen but knows that she must do the right thing to make her mother proud even though she is not alive anymore. So Caliza has agreed to marry her sister to the Prince of Illucia to help both of the kingdoms. Thia really doesn't like this because they were the ones that killed all the crow eggs and destroyed her kingdom.
But things change and a plan is put in place before Thia is sent to Illucia to marry the Prince.
I found this story excellent, it was well organised and there was a lot of action and plot twists. I loved all the different characters as they all had different personalities. At times I really didn't like some of the characters especially the Prince of Illucia because he was so stuck up and really annoying, so I understood how Thia felt about him. But then when you discovered more of the background of certain characters you understood why they were like that. I also liked how that there was a lesbian romance within the book. There seems to be a lot more of it in young adult books now, I appreciate how they are finally becoming accepting of what other people like and how they feel towards people.
I also liked that Thia seemed to be making process with her depression throughout as she had a task to do and she was determined but then when she had a set back in her plan it knocked her mentality down which is understandable. So I really like how Kalyn portrayed depression in a real life picture.
I got to about 90% of this book and knew that it was going to have to end on a cliff hanger because there wasn't physically enough pages to finish the story how I would have finished it. But the ending was pretty good and I did like it even though it was a cliff hanger. In a way I wish it wasn't an ARC so I wouldn't have to wait so long for the next book.
I'd recommend this book to anyone that; loves adventure, action, story twists, betrayal and, romance.
Favourite Character: Thia
Read: 14/01/19 - 16/01/19
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