SPFBO 11: Stormvalor by Starr Z. Davies

As I’ve mentioned in other reviews, I have been rolling a D-20 to pick which book I’m reading next. I don’t tend to read reviews, or even descriptions of the book, I just load it into my Text-to-speech app and let the GPS narration take me away! (I don’t have the time to sit and read any more, all my reading has to be done while I’m working, or doing chores, or driving.)

This book may appeal to people who like Brandon Sanderson’s themes of good and evil, but wish he would focus a little more on the interpersonal relationships rather than extensive world-building. Don’t get me wrong, that isn’t to say there isn’t world-building, but I felt like the characters took the main stage while the world-building was a backdrop.

The book opens with one of our side POVs murdering someone – he’s an assassin but there’s an effort made to humanize him and show he isn’t without a code, he’s just very good at what he does. We don’t know why he’s killing this dude, either. He’s a mysterious bloke who comes into the picture more and more as the plot opens up.

I’d say the main characters are Aethen, who is a prince (I think? If he’s not, he’s in the royal family somehow forgive me but there are a LOT of royals in this book), and Asyln, who a princess but these two are from two different kingdoms. Both of these MCs are being forced into a marriage, potentially with each other, despite the fact they are both already in relationships with other people they genuinely care about.

Aethen’s father, in particular, is being very strange about the whole arranged marriage thing. He’s telling Aethen things that hint that this forced marriage isn’t even his dad’s idea, but that if it doesn’t happen, things could go catastrophically wrong for their family. Aethen’s father is adamant that Aethen win the princess’s hand or there could be some potential dire consequences — we just don’t know what those are for most of the book which keeps the tension and mystery up a bit. There’s a championship called Stormvalor, hence the title of the book, and whoever wins gets a boon from the king — likely his daughter’s hand in marriage. Aethen is the favorite to win the tournament, but Aethen feels like any one of the competitors could potentially win.

So, to recap, we’ve got a princess who loves her bodyguard, a nobleman from another house and kingdom who wants to get married to his current partner, but they are being forced into marriage by their families. Now, things get more complicated when a third suitor for the princess enters the ring. At first, Aethen is happy about this because it’ll be an excuse not to be able to win the princess, and he can go back to the woman he loves. However, the pressure only mounts from his dad, and despite his efforts, he starts to fall for the princess anyway. These characters are just super lusty to be honest. There’s a lot of chiseled jaws, admiration of the other’s beauty, thinking lusty thoughts, etc. In fact, the princess is definitely not a virgin, and she gives no fucks about it, and it doesn’t look like her parents do either. From what her mother says, it feels like as long as she doesn’t get pregnant, or actually marry her bodyguard, no one seems to care she’s sexually active. Her brother wants to marry the stable boy — so there is gay representation but this society is not super down with that. He has to hide the fact that he’s gay, and he’s being actively encouraged to find a wife despite everyone in the family knowing he’s not interested.

I feel like I’m slightly adjacent to the target audience since this was a little too romancey for me. There was an awful lot of drama going on between the characters due to who likes who, and who is fucking who, and who has to try to fuck who, even if they aren’t that into them, etc. It was like reading about a love dodecahedron because so many folks were getting involved. As soon as I thought all of the suitors were made known, another suitor for princess Aslyn would pop up, and it got more confusing and for me this made things convoluted rather than upping the tension regarding who she was going to pick. At that point, I didn’t care, just pick someone (she says with romance in her heart).

All the bitching about love dodecahedrons aside, I did finish it since I wanted to know wtf was going on with the assassin in the background plot — he was by far the most interesting part of the plot for me. I feel like this author has a polished writing style, which made it easy to keep going, too. It was a long book but I felt like the lull was because I wasn’t engaged with the romance plot, so your mileage may vary, you could find yourself frantically turning pages if you’re into the “will they won’t they” kinds of romance stories. It is being marked as safe!