Roar Full Review

Title: Roar
Author: Cora Cormack
Publisher Info / Release: TorTeen / June 13, 2017
Source: ARC that was passed on to me.
Rating: 5 / 5 *’s
Synopsis: New York Times bestselling author Cora Carmack’s young adult debut: Roar.

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.

**Post may contain some slight spoilers referring to characters, so read at your own discretion 🙂 **

Ever since I read the sampler of this book, I have been slightly obsessed with this story. You can read that review here and I’m going to continue from there on this review.

Picking up from where I left off – I’m really confused about Cassius. We’ve learned that he is Aurora’s fiance but I get an evil vibe from him, however I’m kind of rooting for him too. I really like a well written villain! There are parts where I truly think he cares for her and we got a glimpse of that in the preview.

In the beginning there was just two POVs but as the story moves forward and Aurora’s journey begins (the synopsis does a great job of explaining it perfectly without spoiling anything: “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.”) The POVs actually branches out to five different pairs of eyes: Aurora, Cassius, Locke, Nova and an anonymous character – I don’t want to give any spoilers. If these weren’t present then I don’t think I would have enjoyed the book as much from just Aurora’s POV. I would have been mad not knowing what else was happening.

Without giving much away, these are some developments that I enjoyed and I’m interested in learning about as we go on throughout the series:

• Rora & Locke’s development past arguments
• Cassius’ emotions coming out
• Rora’s stormling background
• Locke’s true name ♥
• What is going on in Locke??
• The anonymous POV
• Getting a glimpse at how the storms work

The ending of the book was pretty crazy (in such a good way) but it wasn’t such a big cliff hangers where you would want to throw your book. I can’t wait to see what happens and how Aurora, Locke and Cassius will handle everything. There are A LOT of questions that need answering.

I definitely recommend getting this book since it will be out in a couple of days. This is Cora’s first book in YA that she has been wanting to do in a while from what I have gathered from her posts on Instagram and in an article and it did not disappoint at all. I personally loved how she wrote out the dialogue and the world that she created. I’m looking forward to the next book!