Hope and Red (The Empire of Storms, Book #1) by Jon Skovron

 Bane and Shadow, Book 2  ♥♥♥♥♥

Hope and Red, Book #1 of The Empire of Storms 

• Author: Jon Skovron
• Published: June 30^th, 2016
• Publisher: Orbit
• Ratings: 5/5

Book Synopsis

In a fracturing Empire spread across savage seas, two people find a common cause. 

Hope – the lone survivor when her village is massacred by the emperor’s forces, is secretly trained by a master Vinchen warrior as an instrument of vengeance.

Red –  an orphan adopted by a notorious matriarch of the criminal underworld, learns to be an expert thief and con artist.

Together they will take down an Empire.

My Thoughts

I loved this book so much! I’m so glad I was able to get my hands on it.  I read this book in less than 24 hours, it got me hooked from the beginning.

As you can tell by the book synopsis the story follows our two main characters Hope and Red, both orphaned by different circumstances.  First we meet Hope found by a Pirate after her whole village was massacred, she is then taken to a monastery where she is trained in martial arts and her goal is vengeance.  Then we have Red both parents died leaving him with no one to look after him, he vows to be the best con artist known around.

Both characters are eight years old when we first get introduce to them.  This story is about coming of age and finding your own way in the world, it’s a story about friendship, loss, love and vengeance.

This story had so many things I loved, from the characters and their friendships to the writing, the pace was quick and I was taken in from the beginning.  There were moments that were sad and others kind of funny.  I loved each character, we get to meet them and grow with them without the story getting boring or having too much of that YA stuff, and without giving any spoilers there is a third character coming in later in the book that definitely had me saying oh wait what????!

I felt like this story went by so fast, and did I mentioned we get pirates and magic and some crazy science experiments being done, well this book has a lot of elements that I truly loved and some of the slang used I was like what does that even means, but lucky for me, they are explained in the back of the book.

Some of my favorite slangs are:

Balls and pricks: Nonsense or foolishness

Cunt-dropping: An idiot or ignorant fool

Pissed and peppered: to be upset

Sugar lump: A nice person

and many others, the list is long and I can’t possibly type all of them (and I’m lazy too), check out the book for yourself.  I can’t wait to get a start on book 2 soon.

Overall, this was a fantastic read and I do recommend it!

Bane and Shadow, Book 2

 

 

Thank you to the author and Orbit books for providing me with a copy, in exchange for a review. ALL OPINIONS ARE MY OWN.