Tagged: ciardis weathervane
Cover Reveal: Sworn to Defiance by Terah Edun
Cover Reveal: Sworn To Defiance by Terah Edun
On Sale on Amazon, iTunes & Barnes & Noble April 25, 2014
Welcome to the Cover Reveal for
SWORN TO DEFIANCE (Courtlight #5). I knew I wanted a purple theme this time and a sassy young woman that wasn’t afraid to get her hair wet, shall we say. As you know each of my covers represents a different femme fatale in my Courtlight books.
Sworn To Raise – Ciardis Weathervane
Sworn To Transfer – Stephanie
Sworn To Conflict – Lady Serena
Sworn To Secrecy – Empress Teresa Athanos Algardis
Without further ado, I’d like you to meet the next fair lady to grace the stage of Courtlight covers. No, I’m not going to tell you who she is yet. But trust me, she packs a punch..
But first…did you know that all my newsletter subscribers got a sneak peak into this cover and a secret summer release in MARCH? If you didn’t, now’s the time to join the list and get the latest sales and release news for Courtlight and Crown Service.
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Alright, alright. Really. Here is the next release in the Courtlight series!
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Coming Of Age
Ciardis Weathervane returned to the imperial court of Sandrin to unite her foes. But her efforts hit a stumbling block. The imperial kind. She never thought that before rallying an empire, she’d have to fight the emperor himself. An imposter sits the throne and the court she turned to for help is in turmoil. Ciardis hasn’t survived assassination attempts, torture and really bad luck to be taken down by her own ruler. So she devises a plan. But first she needs to get Sebastian and Thanar to agree. Each seems to love her in their own way. But neither are listening to her.
Pushing them to put aside their differences, in an effort to ward off catastrophe, might be harder than displacing an emperor who would do anything to keep his throne.
Butting heads at court isn’t Ciardis’s only problem. With the princess heir’s threat looming she is forced to travel to the mythical city of Baen, where it is up to her small group to stop the destruction of the entire city while heading a rebellion that could foment a revolution. It wouldn’t be the first revolution that Algardis has ever known. But with Ciardis Weathervane at its head—it would certainly be the last.
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Sworn to Secrecy by Terah Edun
(Cover picture courtesy of Terah Edun.)
In the heart of the Imperial Courts, Ciardis Weathervane knows that death is coming for the empire. With her friends by her side and the new triad of Weathervanes, she’s in a race against time to convince the courts of the same.
She must do her best to unite kith, mages, nobles and merchants under one cause – the fight to prevent a war. Soon she is forced to keep a secret that could exonerate her mother of the Empress’s death, and is always one move away from stepping into diplomatic chaos.
Throw in a daemoni prince who is showing interest in the youngest Weathervane, a jealous prince heir, and a irritated dragon with her own designs on Ciardis, and you have an imperial court in turmoil.
This fourth novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn To Conflict.
[Full disclosure: I was given a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
You could argue that Sworn to Secrecy is just a big set up for the final book Sworn to Defiance but then you’d be wrong. There’s important stuff going on in this one and this fourth book is my favourite in the Courtlight series so far.
Let’s talk about the characters first. Ciardis has really grown up from the overwhelmed country girl in a city, although she does occasionally get overwhelmed. Her mother Lillian is absolutely fascinating and I love how she slowly reveals her backstory and the true events of the night the empress was killed.
I also like that Terah Edun didn’t make Ciardis and Lillian immediately fall into a happy-go-lucky mother-daughter relationship. There’s still some lingering resentments on Ciardis’ side because of her mother’s abandonment and Lillian is still kind of awkward around her children, as if she’s unsure how to be a mother after so many years. My favourite character other than Ciardis in this one was Thanar, the daemoni prince. He’s the snarky type of actual bad boy that I like rather than your stereotypical bad boys with pretty much nothing to angst about.
The plot was incredibly fast-paced but not at the price of world-building and character development. We learn so much about Ciardis’ world in this one and old plots are being slowly revealed. There’s conspiracies going on here and they reach all the way up to the highest authority in the land: the emperor. I was genuinely surprised at the plot twist about him but in hindsight it does make a lot of sense.
Another plot development I liked was, again surprisingly, the love triangle between Sebastien, Ciardis and Thanar. It felt organic and I love how Ciardis is genuinely confused about whether she really has feelings for Sebastien, who constantly seems to be pushing her away. I won’t give much more away but let’s just say it’s an interesting dynamic and it’s not your typical love triangle.
Basically, Sworn to Secrecy was a pretty awesome penultimate book to a series that keeps improving with each book. It’s going to be hard for Terah Edun to wrap things up in the final book but with the way her writing keeps improving I have faith in her.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Cover Reveal: Sworn to Secrecy by Terah Edun
Sworn to Conflict by Terah Edun
(Cover picture courtesy of trips down imagination road.)
Ciardis Weathervane fought for the living dead and won. But worse than taking on a mass murderer, was her discovery that she had been deceived by her friends. Now she needs to not only fight a war in the North and survive, but also decide where she stands in the midst of competing sides.
A threat to all she holds dear lies in the North and her heart is not the only thing she might lose. A massive army awaits in the mountain pass, surging closer to the gates of the southern lands. Nothing the Algardis army has done so far has dissuaded their march forward and Ciardis finds out that her powers to enhance are needed now more than ever.
As she faces her greatest fears on the battlefields and her heart is torn between her love of Sebastian and loyalty to her family, Ciardis must choose her fate carefully. For in her path, lies the destiny of the empire.
This third novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn To Transfer.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
You know, I was more than a little skeptical of the entire Courtlight series after reading the first novel. It was more than a little rushed and the writing was decent enough, but nothing special. What made me stick with the series was the amazing characters and the incredibly unique premise. So, now that I’m on the third book out of four books, was it worth it?
Of course!
I loved Sworn to Conflict even more than I loved the previous book, Sworn to Transfer. It’s better than the first one and I thought it would be hard to top the second book, but Terah Edun has improved yet again. She’s found the perfect balance between dialogue and description and has expanded her fascinating fantasy world yet again. There are new creatures, new threats to the realm and terrifying new secrets that change everything Ciardis thought she knew.
Aside from the world-building, I really enjoyed the characters in this novel. Ciardis is a great character in that she’s not afraid to stand up to Prince Sebastian, despite the fact he’s the heir to the realm and she’s only a Companion. And when she’s betrayed by him, she doesn’t go running back to him, ready to forgive all of his wrongs. No, she’s able to be mad and stay mad and eventually begin the long path to forgiveness. It’s far more realistic, believe me.
The plot was fast-paced but not to the point where I had no idea what was going on. There were so many twists and turns that I barely kept up, but I enjoyed myself the whole time. You never really know just where Terah Edun is going to take the series and I think the final book, Sworn to Secrecy is going to be even better than this one. I can’t wait for the release!
I give this book 5/5 stars.