These are the first two books in the Weather Wardens series. I thought it was easiest to review both in one post and share more general thoughts on the series, rather than a specific book review for each.
Joanne Baldwin can control the weather. As one of the Weather Wardens, she’s responsible for maintaining the natural flow of the weather and helping even out major crises. But things aren’t going so well for her, as she’s acquired a Demon Mark and the only person she knows who can help her get rid of it is in hiding. In fact, he’s impossible to find, and Joanne is running out of time. With deceitful Djinn (genies) in her way and secretive friends, Joanne isn’t sure who she can trust to help her get rid of her Demon Mark and return to her job.
Urban fantasy is one of my favorite genres. I have plenty of examples of the genre where the characters are amazing and develop with realistic relationships and death-defying odds and cool magic systems – everything that I look for in a fantasy novel. Unfortunately, these books didn’t deliver on what I wanted, and as a result I think I’ll be leaving this series behind. I’d purchased these books in a 2 for 1 style deal, so I thought I’d keep going, but the second one didn’t really improve on the first.
Primarily, I didn’t connect at all with the main character, Joanne. She’s too focused on fast cars, attractive men, and clothes for me to like her, in perfect honesty. She doesn’t seem all that bright and she doesn’t make the right choices. Or, I should say, the choices I would make in her shoes, nor is she the sort of character that I’d try to understand anyway.
Secondly, maybe I’m not far along enough yet in the series, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a unifying factor. A lot changes in the second book, yes, but then could be completely reversed at the end, which makes me wonder what was the point of reading it at all. The relationships didn’t develop in ways that I believed in, and the characters apart from Joanne felt mostly like cardboard. It’s really an action and emotion novel; you have to get sucked in to follow the ride, and this time I simply wasn’t sucked in at all.
It’s a shame because I really wanted to like this series, and it isn’t as though I minded reading it. I just feel like my standards for this genre have been raised so high by the utterly amazing fantasy that I’ve been reading that these two books weren’t really there. I am afraid I can’t recommend this series.
I purchased these books.
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