Author: Thea Guanzon
Genres: Fantasy Romance (Romantasy)
Tropes: Enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, only one bed
Publication date: October 3, 2023
Edition I read: Paperback
Pages: 480
My rating: 4.5/5
Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/126510926-the-hurricane-wars
This review contains spoilers. If you haven't read the book yet and want to avoid them, skip to the overall thoughts at the end.
Sometimes your read a novel that's supposed to be enemies to lovers, where the love interests get over their feud almost immediately, leaving you disappointed. Well, this book is not that.
In the story Talasyn and Alaric meet in the war, fighting on opposite sides: Talasyn being a soldier on the Sardovian Allfold's army with Lightweaver powers, Alaric the crown prince of the Night Empire, leader of their Shadowforged legion.
Their hatred towards one another is as strong as it can be and they have an epic fight. Even then though, Alaric is strangely intrigued, and instead of finishing her off, he kind of lets her go.
The next time they clash they both get captured in Nenavar, where Talaysn finds out she's the long lost princess of the realm, Alunsina. Alaric escapes, not knowing anything about it, while Talaysn also flees back to Sardovia to finish the war on her comrades side.
The Night Empire wins the war and the remnants of the Sardovian army flee. With Talasyn on board, they sail towards Nenavar to ask for refuge. The Dragon Queen grants it on one condition: Talasyn needs to take her position as her heir, the Lachis'ka. Out of duty Talasyn takes it and it all goes well until the Night Empire's stormships turn up on their doorstep.
To avoid the Night Empire invading Nenavar, their Queen offers the new emperor (Alaric, who took the mantle in name from his father) marriage to the Lachis'ka, and with that, an alliance between the two nations. The Night Empire take it with Alaric none the wiser about Talasyn being the Lachis'ka.
When they become bethroted, Talasyn and Alaric both suffer with their attraction towards the other. But unlike in other novel when they get over it pretty fast, here they really struggle.
Since it's a dual POV book, we can see how they both try to deny this interest and attraction even within their own thoughts and how they detest themselves for their feelings. At the same time they both keep thinking the other doesn't feel the same, which made it a little bit frustrating.
Fair warning: I'm not a huge fan of slow burns, so I really wish they got together a little sooner -and that even then Talasyn didn't act like this was the biggest mistake of her life. I kind of hated her reaction both after their first kiss and after their wedding night.
Even though I wasn't obsessed, I liked this book a lot overall. With the well-written double POV I felt connected to both of our main characters, which is very important for me.
The book itself was also easy to read with an interesting world and magic system -I was just a little bit disappointed that the dragons didn't have a bigger part in the story. I hope we'll see more of them in the upcoming books.
I'm also looking forward to seeing more of the romance unfolding in the upcoming books, hoping they'll come to terms with their feelings. And that maybe we'll get a little more spice too.