I’ve owned Viper for quite a while, but have never read it, as I wanted to wait for the whole Isles of Storm & Sorrow trilogy to be published before starting it. The books, physically, are gorgeous. I have no idea why they have only been published in paperback. I would literally LOVE hardback editions for my shelves.

I really enjoyed the story and do not understand why these books are not more popular! The characters are fantastic! Grace and Torin were particular favourites of mine. Grace’s death came as a complete surprise, and I was quite impressed that the author was brave enough to kill off such a big character in the first book of the series. Full kudos for shock factor here!
I loved Torin. His character reminded me of Nikolai in the Shadow & Bone series, whom I also adored!

Many first books in a series are information dumping grounds for the future books, but Viper has a full plot all of it’s own, and does not end on a cliffhanger. Because of this, it could be read as a stand-alone (As long as you don't have a burning desire to find out what happens next, which I certainly do!)

My criticism would be that certain aspects of the plot were very transparent. For example, I guessed very early on that her father was not her father. As soon as Marianne and Grace refused to even acknowledge it as a possibility whilst discussing her heritage, (Despite her often musing that she looked nothing like him) I knew. I also felt that the relationships were glaringly obvious, despite the mystery built-up surrounding them, especially in the case of Torin and Sharpe.

I’m looking forward to diving straight into Venom (Book 2). ( )

This story was very intriguing. It has pirates, assassins, magic, and prince charming. A kingdom divided, and our main character's world thrown into turmoil as she prepares to face her father. I really liked this book but I gave it only two stars because I had some major issues with it.

The first issue is the main character. Marianne was raised by a cruel pirate father. She is trained in martial arts and other fighting techniques. She is consistently surrounded by low lives and vagrants, and yet she remains soft. I don't mean that she doesn't want to kill people, I wouldn't either, but she has no backbone. She has paper thin skin. She's gravely naive and jumps to erroneous conclusions again and again, and repeatedly gets innocent people killed with her general lack of common sense.

The second issue was how it wrapped up. There was no big ending battle, the big bad goes down in like 3 pages. While there is still a lot of plot left, it feels like it happened to fast. Like there is a pressure off, no driving force for the plot the next books.

However, I am inexplicably intrigued. I still want to see what happens next, even if it's not a clawing need for the next book. I still enjoyed it, and the world building was amazing, I just felt the ending fell a little flat, and the characters left a lot wanting. The only characters I was truly intrigued by, they killed off or stagnated. ( )