The Empyrean Series Book 3

Matcha & Motifs Rating: 2.5/5 

The growing threats within and outside the wards drive Violet Sorrengail to journey beyond safety to find the seventh breed of dragons – the potential key to saving everyone. However, with a secret agenda of her own, is she asking for too much? 

***INCLUDES SPOILERS!!!***

Initial thoughts on Onyx Storm? What the actual fuck.

Plot/Writing 

I need to get the hate off my chest, first, the pacing was so slow.

The plot points itself weren’t bad, it just felt lost in the sauce of poor connection and writing. If we were to make a plot-point timeline, there would be a lot of important things: allowing the griffin riders to stay at Basgaith, securing new allies, deciphering Violet’s dad’s journal, discovering Adarna’s kind, and the overall quest to discovering how to defeat the venin, or should I say curing venin. Overall, it still follows the original trajectory of trying to save the world. It just feels stretched thin and very muddled, giving us little reason to care. 

The introduction of new things that we weren’t privy to before is now the forefront of the reason why “we” can’t. We’re suddenly so concerned with working with the Sernarium, a council of nobility, when politics and nobility were briefly introduced and barely relevant in book one and two. There’s a war going on and our one shot to save people and win is being “facilitated”? It feels frustrating that a big portion of this book is that they’re working around these “leaders”. One minute we’re trying to fall back under Basgaith’s rules, and when we do it bites us in the butt. And! I want to point out that there feels to be little repercussions anyways, so what was the point of the whole back and forth of “we can’t break the rules, we’re breaking the rules anyways”.  

That’s not to say I completely hated it, I think the growing love and investment in this series made this one fall short. It feels like a transition book.

One of the arcs that I enjoyed was the OG squad quest’s mission to discover Andarna’s kind, breaking the rules, and working as a unit. The world-building was integrated nicely here, it was relevant to go to the Southern Isles, and we learned about the different little nations and their customs. We even get the Violet I love and adore so much back, her being conniving and poisoning people! Yes, this quest does end in failure, but it feels like failure with a purpose!

On the note of writing, everyone did say that the writing was bad in this book, but I don’t think it was horrible. I forget how often they swear in this universe. I think some of the writing was confusing. I had to re-read a couple of the passages to understand where everyone was standing and what orientation the world was facing or what the combat looked like. I was also confused about who’s who and what place we were talking about. There was an expansion of world-building that felt hard to follow. 

It also feels like the author dropped a bunch of hints in this book and we’re supposed to use these as the starting points to connect the dots for the rest of the series. Personally, I feel like this book was a huge filler episode, with all the important things that move our story forward, I feel like it could’ve been half its size. 

Romance 

Maybe too much time had passed between me reading this book and the last because why does it feel like the romance is a bit dull. Like the smut feels a bit unnecessary now, and overall it feels bland. I kind of forgot why they fell for each other in the first place? 

There were some sweet moments: 

“Xaden tilts his head, studying the king. “Violet.” My heart skips into double time. “My loyalty is to Violet first above everything, everyone else,”

“I live by you. When have I ever given a fuck about the Codex or the Code of Conduct?” He cradles my face and leans down, resting his forehead against mine. “I am yours and you are mine, and there’s no law or rule in this world or the next that will change that.”

I enjoyed Xaden being jealous and so openly devoted to Violet. Something about this book in general didn’t completely do it for me, maybe I’m in need of a re-read. I miss being on the Xaden train. 

Characters

I enjoyed the dive into Violet’s past. The integration of her dad’s history was good because it felt connected to the Scribe-ness of her identity. It’s mysterious but revealing and it moves the plot nicely along. Additionally, exploring the islands, we discover the temple with silver hair girls this opens connections to who Violet is but also who Theophanie was. It’s this detail that Violet was able to defeat Theophanie which was epically written. 

In general, I felt like a lot of the characters fell flat in this book. First, the sheer amount of characters made it so hard to keep track of everyone. Second, I get this is war and we need a lot of soldiers, but I felt like it was hard for Yarros to develop her characters since there were so many. Like my favorite part of the book was Ridoc. He felt genuine, funny and likable. Might be one of the saving grace of this series. But characters like Cat and even Rhiahnon felt like they took a backseat a little bit. 

Hated Haldan, he’s whiny and pompous and spoiled and stupid. His character was only relevant for an ex moment and making Xaden jealous but it felt spur of the moment and short-lived. I was glad to get rid of his character. See, even though I hated Cat, her character at least grows on me a bit. But Haldan just makes me want to roll my eyes. 

Personally, I don’t like defeating villains quickly. I really enjoyed the introduction of Theophanie. I felt like her character opened a lot of pathways to character and world-building. The silver hair connection, learning of her signet as a storm wielder and discovering the balance of magic. I personally wish her character wasn’t killed off, now she feels like a filler character. 

Speaking of killing off characters, are we just killing characters now? 

Characters are pushed to the forefront from the past (which I do like), but they try to be the new antagonists and then just end up dying. Like their whole relevance was to die? 

First Aura Beinhaven is a prick and gets put on the original squad quest group just to toast the leader and ends up getting herself killed. Next, Trager, who I don’t really remember or isn’t that memorable, joins Violet’s squad quest, has a thing for Cat, and when things were going good, gets killed? Like why? To add some kills in the book? To add more mental stress on Violet? And plus, I was really rooting for Cat’s happiness, why did we have to steal that away? I have many questions. 

Final thoughts, with how slow this book read, I feel like this series does not need to be a five book series, but prove me wrong? Is book four going to be like this? Slow pacing, muddled events, a confusing plotline? 

Overall, I think there is still this attachment to the series. The cliffhanger definitely got me on the edge of my seat. I still enjoyed this book, and feel that sense of wanting to keep reading, though not as much as the last two books. This book wasn’t bad, overall, it felt a little disappointing and unsatisfying. What are your thoughts on how the Empyrean Series is going?