Title: Strom Glass
Author: Maria V. Snyder.
Page Count/Book Type: 504. Paperback.
With her unique magical abilities, Opal has always felt unsure of her place at Sitia’s magic academy. But when the Stormdancer clan needs help, Opal’s knowledge makes her the perfect choice — until the mission goes awry.
Pulling her powers in unfamiliar direction, Opal finds herself tapping into a new kind of magic as stunningly potent as it is frightening. Now Opal must deal with plotters out to destroy the Stormdancer clan, as well as a traitor in their midst.
With danger and deception rising around her, will Opal’s untested abilities destroy her — or save them all?
I’ve gone and become a sucker for these books. Opal is actually in one (or two?) of The Study Series novels, Yelena encounters her a couple of times so building up a story around her makes sense and is a great way to expand the world she has already established, thus giving readers more and allowing her to stretch her legs a bit. This was a really fun read, I tore through it almost half a dozen chapters at a time and liked the general story; it touched on the original series enough so that if you read it you’d know exactly what she was talking about but only so much for people who hadn’t read it that they would get the picture. Despite myself i found that i got really sucked into the love triangle in the book to the point where I was having Darth Vader moments of melodramatically howled NOs out loud at some parts for fear she was going to end up with the wrong guy, which was sort of fun to get wrapped up in when it’s written well and actually that was one of the stronger threads in this novel for me. I think a lot of the characters in these books can be a bit archetypal, but I don’t really mind it so much because it’s just such fun to read and by this stage the world is pretty well established. That was definitely something I felt Snyder did well in this novel, building on the fantasy world and revealing more about Sitia and Ixia. However, coming back to cameos briefly: No Valek, what are you playing at, Snyder? My favourite “liquid mercury” assassin better be in the next one at least briefly or I will be disappointed. Next chance I get I am going to snap up the next in this series, it’s fun summer reading!
