Book Review Rebecca Yarros's Onyx Storm
Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros
Published by: Entangled: Red Tower Books
Publication Date: January 21st, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 640 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
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They weren't rebels, they were revolutionaries. They fled the lies they had been told but in Navarre's darkest hour they returned. They were able to raise the wards around Basgiath. They saved those they could. But so many were lost and so many more will be lost. Violet's mother, General Lilith Sorrengail, is dead. Aretia's wards will fail. And Xaden is... Xaden channeled from the source to save Basgiath. The price will be his soul. He will become venin. Violet will not believe this. Just because there are no accounts of initiates just walking away from the power doesn't mean that Xaden isn't strong enough. They just have to be careful. After the loss of her mother Violet can't face the loss of the miracle that is her and Xaden. What they are is the result of a precise combination of tragedies that broke them both so completely that when they collided they became something entirely new. But the venin call to Xaden. Jack Barlowe is locked up down in the cells calling to him. Tempting him. Though Jack won't give up the name of his Sage or anything other than trivial information. The venin want Xaden ignorant so that he will have no choice but to become one of them. As their desiccation of the Continent has shown, they are greedy and will stop at nothing. That greed means they won't be satisfied with just Xaden, they want Violet and her irid as well. Which is one piece of needed information that the venin accidentally gave up. Violet now knows exactly what kind of dragon Andarna is. She's an irid scorpiontail. The seventh dragon species now has a name. Which means they can search them out and perhaps power the second wardstone and protect Aretia. But the systematic erasure of history in the archives has them hitting wall after wall. Violet needs her father's research on the second Krovlan Uprising. Which, much like the irids, isn't in Navarre, and definitely isn't on the Continent. She must follow in her father's footsteps, she must journey to Cordyn and from there book passage to Deverelli. She must seek out the merchant Narelle Anselm and take with her the rarest item she possesses. Only there is no magic beyond the Continent. A journey beyond the bounds of magic with dragons and gryphons in search of knowledge and irids seems foolhardy to those in charge. But it is a journey that they must undertake. No matter the dangers. No matter the sacrifices. Though can Violet and Tairn survive if it's Xaden and Sgaeyl who must be sacrificed?
I love this series a ridiculous amount. And one of the reasons is how ridiculous it is. It's angst and trauma and death turned up to eleven. It's like reliving your teenage horrors but with the foreknowledge that nothing good is going to come of it. Yet beneath the trappings of dragons and hot sex there's the message about the importance of history and libraries and books. Oh, this is a series that is really pro book. And, in this day and age, we need that. While the previous two volumes dealt with the systematic erasure of the horrible history of Navarre and how they saved themselves at the cost of everyone else and then erased their history so no one would know of their crimes against humanity, this volume is about personal versus national history. Unbeknownst to our cast of characters they are going to get a whole heaping of personal trauma due to secrets in their past. Ironically while slowly turning into a soulless monster Xaden gets off the lightest with only having to confront his mother Talia. Sure, it's the dinner party from hell, a lot of poison might be involved, but at least it's over quickly. Whereas Violet has to face up to the fact that her parents were keeping a lot of secrets from her and she now has no one to confront about the lies. The least of which is that her paternal grandmother Niara isn't the one who cut off communication with her son and his family, it was the other way around. Because Violet's father, Asher, was up to a whole lot of shady shit; trying to dedicate his daughter to the goddess of war, writing books and secreting them away on other islands, teaching her best friend languages so that he could help her, basically planning for the end times and his daughter's education, but in secret. Sure, it's nice to know the answers are out there and your father was always thinking of you, but wouldn't it have just been so much easier to just be honest? The duplicity and lies have to be eating away at Violet. But then again, her brother made her believe he was dead, so it's not like anyone in the Sorrengail family knows what a healthy relationship is. Though nothing will destroy you as much as what Andarna has to face. She went on this perilous journey with Violet in the hopes the irids would help, or at least fire the wardstone, but she really just wanted to know her family. And her family are assholes. They tell Andarna that she is broken. She was nothing more than a test for humans and they failed. To be told you're nothing, to be told you're broken, my heart broke for Andarna. Damn. All these characters just need hugs. But Andarna gets to go first, come here you pretty irid you!
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