I'm sure thousands and thousands of other people will love this book with their whole heart, but sadly I'm not one of them.

When you are reading The Hurricane Wars, you can feel the 'fanfic-ness' of it all. Thea Guanzon does an amazing job at the beginning providing some details on the world and the war that is going on around it, but after a blast of 1-2 chapters, things start to drop off very fast.I will start this review by saying that I wasn't aware that this was a Reylo fanfic until the 70% mark (thanks Mai), and while I try to put aside any prejudice I may have about published fanfiction, this may explain for the numerous problems (and calamities) this book has. I think I went in with the expectation that this book was going to match my interests, but ultimately this is a trope heavy romantasy that is marketed a little awkwardly (I feel like the publishers are trying to push it to a She Who Became The Sun, The FoxGlove King, One Dark Window fanbase VS a From Blood and Ash fanbase). I am not that audience. I found myself going from overjoyed and ready to give THW 5 stars to feeling like it was a genuine chore to read. BUT I ATE IT ALL UP and now I'm questioning my judgement while my ancestors (who fought off Dutch and British colonizers) frown upon my literary choices. I will say though, I absolutely hated how the author used italics so liberally to emphasize certain words. (See what I did there? lolll) It feels very amateur fanfic and I seriously hope she stops doing it in the rest of the series. Like, okay, readers understand what you're trying to say/emphasize because of context clues, duh!! Although I would have loved for this book to be more focused on the fantasy side, I really enjoyed reading it and I believe it is a wonderful beginning of a new series.

All Talasyn has ever known is the Hurricane Wars. Growing up an orphan in a nation under siege by the ruthless Night Emperor, she found her family among the soldiers who fight for freedom. But she is hiding a deadly secret: light magic courses through her veins, a blazing power believed to have been wiped out years ago that can cut through the Night Empire’s shadows. Talasyn e Alaric hanno una chimica pazzesca! Entrambi vengono da un infanzia difficile e piena di traumi e entrambi combattono nelle Hurrican Wars per ragioni differenti e quando i loro mondi entrano in contrasto tutto inizia a trovare il proprio posto! All Talasyn has ever known is the Hurricane Wars. Growing up an orphan in a nation under siege by the ruthless Night Emperor, Talasyn has found her family among the soldiers who fight for freedom. But she is hiding a deadly secret: light magic courses through her veins, a blazing power believed to have been wiped out years ago that can cut through the Night Empire's shadows.But somehow, it all worked for me. I honestly don't know why. And I'm speaking as someone who dislikes the romance genre in general.

Overall, The Hurricane Wars just didn't do it for me and if reading a book feels like a chore by 25%, I DNF for my own sanity and to make sure I keep my love of reading alive. I'm clearly in the minority since so many others seem to love this book, so who knows, maybe you'll enjoy it more than I did. Thank you so much to Avon & Harper Voyager for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review! I would like to thank HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction, HarperVoyager and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review. I can consider myself truly privileged to have read this masterpiece 6 months before its release date! I immediately thank Netgalley, HarperVoyager Uk and Thea Guanzon for allowing me to read this ARC!I would like to preface that Zana and I read things other than colonizer romances, even if it doesn't seem that way. Is this a new genre? Colonizer romantasies? Guanzon said: “As a lifelong devotee of speculative fiction, I never dreamed that I’d one day have the opportunity to share an epic fantasy of my own with the world—and combine it with my other great love, romance, to boot. When I began envisioning this trilogy, I knew that I wanted to write a story about magic, about two people finding their way to each other against all odds—and I also wanted to write a story about my homeland, about our culture and all that we have overcome and what lies ahead of us still. There's a lot of instances where the author panders to the reader. Talasyn has big 'Chosen One' energy, so whenever she starts to get closer to discovering more about her past, she has moments where she's like "something inside me was being pulled....but no matter" to signify it's obviously very important but instead of listening to her gut she ignores it. The same thing happens whenever she's around Alaric. I was constantly rolling my eyes whenever this happened, and it occurred quite a lot. Basically, you can expect no plot twists here because the author gives you so many clues ahead of time. The dialogue between Talasyn and Alaric was juvenile. When they’re in the middle of a fight they banter with quips and snarky comments about how much they hate each other with some familiarity so it seems as if they've been at this for a while even though they've recently 'met' in battle. I honestly felt like I was reading about young teenagers instead of soldiers who are 19 and 26 years old.

this is so painfully juvenile i genuinely would like to know how this got approved for publication… My problem is that it reads painfully juvenile in almost every aspect. The prose is mostly fine, if a little repetitive and rife with genre clichés, but the dialogue between the main leads becomes truly insufferable after a while. I don’t understand what’s the point of writing an adult romance if your protagonists speak and act like immature teenagers. The banter between Alaric and Talasyn reads like something you would find in a young adult book about petty high school drama, not what two heads of state at war with one another would say. Since the arc didn't have a map, it was really hard to understand the geopolitics (which was a really huge deal in this story), so it was hard to make out who the players were. But at the end of the day, it turned out to be Everyone vs. Kesath, the Ultra Mega Colonizer Shadow Empire. The Hurricane Wars has a strong beginning for high fantasy lovers and I was extremely excited about it. After that, the romance takes over and the politics assume a less central aspect to the story. Was I disappointed the romance takes such a central role in the story? A bit yes. The premise of the book is intriguing and I hated that it felt more bland, at least against my expectations. Did I still enjoyed the book? Absolutely!Bardon added: “I’m so thrilled that I get to work with Thea, Thao and Julia. Thea has built an incredible new world for fans to get lost in and The Hurricane Wars is everything I love about fantasy. I’m excited to watch this fresh, bold and exciting new talent make waves in a genre where HarperVoyager continues to break incredible debut voices.” I was very surprised that I ended up liking The Hurricane Wars! I'm definitely not a huge fan of romantasy, but I thought that the romance was executed really well in this one. Sure, the actual romantic scenes and situations were pretty predictable, but the huge lead up hooked me right in. The other aspects of this novel that I enjoyed reading about were definitely the themes of war and colonization. Thea Guanzon did not shy away from describing the horrors of the Hurricane Wars. The devastation of The Night Empire rampaging across continents and forcing other civilizations to succumb to their power is so heavy and my heart hurt for Talasyn and the atrocities that she, her fellow soldiers, and her friends and family had to endure under The Night Empire's wrath. I think the politics of this world in this novel were written very well, and readers who enjoy political fantasies will definitely enjoy reading The Hurricane Wars. And for those of you who may not know, this story is based on a Reylo fanfic that the author ended up turning into an original story. I want to state that I have not read this fanfic, or any other Reylo fanfics, so I did not go into this with any sort of bias. In this the book shows its origins, because with fanfics you're already familiar with the characters and don't need any extra details about them to enjoy what you're reading. But in a book? More time should've been taken to flesh out the characters, give them unique personalities etc.