A Monsoon Rising

Title: A Monsoon Rising

Author: Thea Guanzon

Series: The Hurricane Wars

Book: Two

Rating: 5/5

~ Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review~

And thank you to Thea Guanzon for providing me with content for my new obsession. Everyone in my life will be hearing about this book nonstop- to be honest, they’ve already been hearing about it nonstop since before I started reading it.

This review was meant to come out last week, but Hurricane Helene had other ideas, so I am very excited to be able to share my thoughts on this book. And I have sooooo many thoughts. First of all, I love the pacing. It makes sense for the plot to have time flow the way it did in the book, and I think that Guanzon did a phenomenal job keeping the plot moving without it feeling surface level. We got some characters a little more fleshed out and the void sever plot? Loved it. I think it really helped me with understanding the magic system within the series to be alongside Talasyn and Alaric as they learned more about what was going on, and it had a great wrap up!

We also got MUCH more of Talasyn and Alaric, and boy oh boy am I happy for that. I really did sit there giggling and kicking my feet for multiple scenes of this book. We seem to be moving more and more away from enemies and closer to lovers, and I am absolutely here for it. I am 100% for Talasyn being with Alaric, and they had so many wonderful scenes together. I also thought the scene with Alaric and Elagbi was so cute, and I want to see more of them, I think they’re a cute duo. But seriously, Talasyn and Alaric are definitely hitting my list of top book couples of all time (they’re very near first at this point), I love them together. I just wish they would communicate better, but that’s the way enemies to lovers works. I’m very nervous about what Talasyn is going to do in the next book as far as her relationship with Alaric, and I really thought that Alaric was the one that I had to worry about. He still could be, but Talasyn is really starting to make me nervous.

I was really not expecting what happened at the end of the book, and I’m so upset it ended on that cliffhanger- mainly because I don’t have the next book already. I knew it was going to end on a cliffhanger, that’s just the ways of books in a series, but I didn’t expect my book hangover to be so bad. I’m not surprised, this series has been amazing and I think once the final book comes out I’ll cry at not having any more Talasyn and Alaric, but hopefully that is far from now. If this series happened to be five, ten, maybe even twenty books I don’t think I would complain at all, simply say “Thank you Thea Guanzon, I love your work,” but alas I fear twenty books is not likely. So for now, I will eat up everything about these books and be so happy I found them.

Alright, to keep this mostly spoiler free but still talk about a few things that happened in this book, I’m going to say a couple things that don’t make sense out of context but if you’ve read the book you’ll know what I mean (so go read it December 10th when it comes out, then you’ll know what I’m talking about!)

-       “Water” has never made me want to cry before now

-       Once you get to chapter thirty one- to be seen is to be loved, and I think these two need to realize that they are seen

-       Mother of dragons

-       KHAEDE (that’s directed at Thea Guanzon herself because I’m going insane over this, I need to know more, please I beg of you)