Roar by Cora Carmack – Spoiler Free Review

Title: Roar
Author: Cora Carmack
Series Name: Stormheart
Genre: YA Fantasy
Publication Date: June 13th, 2017
Pages: 380 (Hardcover)
Publishers: Tor Teen
Rating:

In a land ruled and shaped by violent magical storms, power lies with those who control them.

Aurora Pavan comes from one of the oldest Stormling families in existence. Long ago, the ungifted pledged fealty and service to her family in exchange for safe haven, and a kingdom was carved out from the wildlands and sustained by magic capable of repelling the world’s deadliest foes. As the sole heir of Pavan, Aurora’s been groomed to be the perfect queen. She’s intelligent and brave and honorable. But she’s yet to show any trace of the magic she’ll need to protect her people.

To keep her secret and save her crown, Aurora’s mother arranges for her to marry a dark and brooding Stormling prince from another kingdom. At first, the prince seems like the perfect solution to all her problems. He’ll guarantee her spot as the next queen and be the champion her people need to remain safe. But the more secrets Aurora uncovers about him, the more a future with him frightens her. When she dons a disguise and sneaks out of the palace one night to spy on him, she stumbles upon a black market dealing in the very thing she lacks—storm magic. And the people selling it? They’re not Stormlings. They’re storm hunters.

Legend says that her ancestors first gained their magic by facing a storm and stealing part of its essence. And when a handsome young storm hunter reveals he was born without magic, but possesses it now, Aurora realizes there’s a third option for her future besides ruin or marriage.

She might not have magic now, but she can steal it if she’s brave enough.

Challenge a tempest. Survive it. And you become its master.

I absolutely love this cover and that is what had drawn me to it, to begin with. I don’t generally like books with people on the cover but this book cover is gorgeous. I also love that the scene continues onto the back of the book to show Paven as well.

I enjoyed the world building in this book. It was easy to follow and  I was never bombarded with information. However, at the beginning, all the terms for the storms were a tad confusing until they were properly explained to Roar. I did find the book a little predictable though. I guessed a fair few things before they happened and also guessed information before the characters discovered it themselves.

I enjoyed that this was told in multiple perspectives. Roar & Locke being the main ones but then also occasional Nova & the Stormlord.

I was told that there was instalove in this book, but I didn’t feel like that it was instalove.
(this may be a little spoilery but what I’m about to talk about is told in the synopsis)
When she meets the prince she is meant to marry she does kinda fall for him a little but I saw that as lust not love. I just saw this as her being naive and inexperienced and she soon learned her lesson with him anyway.
(This next bit is a bit more spoilery)
Her next romance wasn’t insta love either.. Sure there was a physical attraction at the beginning but it was over time that anything actually happened.

Also, I love maps in books and this book had a map!

Overall I liked the plot. As many of you will know I am not a huge fan of romance and especially in fantasy books I hate when the romance overtakes the plot of the book. Unfortunately, at times that happened in this book and I, didn’t enjoy it. However. it wasn’t enough for me to hate the book and I mainly just ignored those parts and moved on.

The book was action packed and did have a fair few twists and turns. However, like I said earlier it was a little predictable so those twists didn’t exactly blow me away as I kinda suspected them.

Auror/Rora/Roar was an enjoyable character. At the beginning, she was gullible, naive and a little annoying but she did develop out of that. However, towards the end, she did start to annoy me again. throughout the book, I thought she was starting to develop into a brave, intelligent and grown up character but as something else started to come into play she kinda back tracked and starting acting a bit more child like again, not thinking, allowing herself to get distracted and started ignoring the real problems in her life.. I don’t want to say anymore as I don’t want to spoil anything!

Locke actually really annoyed me a lot of the time when it came to how he treated Roar. I get that he was being protective but if he had his way I’m pretty sure he would have locked her away so she would never have to face reality and that really annoyed me. Even when she showed that she could handle things he still tried to baby her all the time and it was just frustrating!

Cassius is a jerk but I dislike his father even more. They are the perfect evil characters in a book and you can’t help but hate them! Especially as you find out more and more of what they did and what they are doing while in Paven!

I really like Nova but I just wish she would have told Rora her secret when she had the chance! I think it would have gone a lot differently for the two of them. But anyway, I can’t wait to see what she is going to do next!

I did enjoy this book but I didn’t have a couple issues with it. The romance being the main thing but that is simply personal preferences. If you like romance in books then I think this romance was done well. I disliked Locke’s character a lot of the time and also Roar’s towards the end (excluding the last chapter which was better). I really hope that in the next book Locke will stop treating Roar like a child and Roar will stop allowing herself to be treated at one!

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HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK? WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON IT?!
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