Book Review: The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon

The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon

Book title: The Hurricane Wars
Author: Thea Guanzon
Genre: Romantasy
Published: October 3, 2023
470 pages
My rating: 3.5/5

“He heard the girl before he saw her, a high and golden hum that cut through the chaos of battle like the first flare of sunrise.”

Having grown up as an orphan in a nation occupied by The Night Empire, Talasyn has only ever known the Hurricane Wars. She uses the power of light to fight for freedom, but everything changes when she uncovers the secret of her past. Alaric Ossinast, on the other hand, wields shadow magic to crush those who stand in the way of the Night Empire. But then he clashes with Talasyn, and soon they are thrust into an uneasy alliance to save the world.

The Hurricane Wars is the first book in Thea Guanzon’s adult romantasy trilogy. If you want an enemies-to-lovers fantasy where a petite and helpless woman learns to use her powers and spends half of the book marveling at how tall and solid and muscular the dark and brooding love interest is, you’ll probably enjoy The Hurricane Wars.

However, if you feel like you’ve read that story a dozen times already and want something different, don’t bother.

Regrettably, I belong to the latter group. It’s unfortunate that a lot of fantasy books these days seem to put all their energy into worldbuilding, but when it comes to the plot and the characters, they simply rehash the same storyline with main characters you cannot tell apart from one fantasy book to the next.

The story is told from two points of view, although Talasyn’s point of view dominates the narrative. Talasyn and Alaric start as literal enemies trying to kill each other in the war, but when Talasyn’s real family is found, they are thrust into an alliance that will lead to an arranged political marriage. And soon, they both discover they are in love. However, there’s really no reason why these two would fall in love. They basically have two meaningful conversations after they have already developed feelings for each other. Feelings that they obviously, and rather tiresomely, cannot confess to each other. The majority of the book is really slow burn, so when there’s suddenly a sex scene in the end, it happens way too fast.

The worldbuilding is fascinating with its aethermancy-based magic system and political intrigues of several nations, including the matriarchal Nenavar Dominion. The intricacy of the world inevitably leads to some infodumps, but for the most part, I didn’t find them annoying. I would have preferred to learn something more about the different ways aethermancy works. The book focused solely on Talasyn’s Lightweaving and Alaric’s Shadowgate in the context of warfare, and the more peaceful applications of the magic fell by the wayside. I would think Talasyn could have found other ways of practicing her magic besides conjuring weapons made of light. Also, considering that the war is called the Hurricane Wars, there was a distinct lack of hurricanes. What the stormships, the battle airships of the Night Empire, did was never shown and not precisely described either.

I would have loved to like this book more than I did. Like I said, if you like trope-y romantasy with enemies to lovers and arranged marriage, this might be the book for you. But you might also find this book boring. I’m giving it three and a half stars, and I don’t think I’ll continue with the series.