Mark This Book Monday: The Elemental Trilogy by Sherry Thomas!!!

Hiya guys!

A new week, a new Monday, and back to work for me! For once I'm returning to work at the same time than most people, but after a bunch of days off, I'm feeling quite refreshed!

I've had some social life, plotted stuff for the apartment, done some cleaning and loads of reading and catching up on sleep!

Starting the week with Mark This Book Monday, this time is three mini reviews that were my Alyssa Recommends books for September, October and November! I had failed to read one of Alyssa's list of recommendations for September and then I decided I could do the whole trilogy and catch up that way!


The Burning Sky by Sherry Thomas

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was supposed to be my Alyssa Recommends book of September, but rather failed at reading it on time. But I've just finished it! The magic! The world! Eton! Wyverns! The shippity ship!! LOVED!

Fantasy is my favourite genre to read, along with science fiction, so when a book comes highly recommended from my fellow bloggy friends, I know I need to read it, but in this case... I wanted to wait for the whole series to be either finished or nearly so, and binge reading book 1 and 2 was quite fantastic!

I had an idea about the book being about a girl passing for a boy at Eton and helping a prince but I was quite puzzled about how that would fit when I start reading the book, but soon enough pieces started clicking together.

I really liked Iolanthe from the start. She's plucky, strong and capable, but she's not usually reckless and she's very much the reluctant hero, so much that she resents Titus for bringing her into the fray and even more in the way that he did.

Titus, well, it took me a lil longer to warm up to him, a think a lil less than Iolanthe but I wasn't turned into a canary. We get to see his duty bound self, his fear and acceptance of his destiny and duty and his resignation make him seemingly cold when he is anything but.

Romancephobe here, but I just shipped the ship so much! Not only they have an attraction that is floating there somehow, they are comrades in arms and make a great team once they fight their differences, the not-so-good starts and put all the cards on the table!

The world building was fantastic, the mix of normal places and the magical realms was so well done! You could tell how the atmosphere was different and you just felt you were in very different places! I loved how the author managed to make us feel like we were in Eton with those boys, and you really felt Iolanthe's worries about discovery!

The plot is perfect for a first book, giving us enough of a storyline to be completed but knowing that there's much to come still, and that the battle might be done but the war isn't! It doesn't end with a cliffhanger at all, but still leaves you wanting more!

Very well deserved 4 to 4.5 stars to this one!



The Perilous Sea by Sherry Thomas

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


My October Alyssa Recommends book and one of those sequels that throw you a curve ball, upend all your expectations and do not suffer from sequel slump or second book syndrome at all!

I started this one immediately after finishing book 1 and the beginning of the book really threw me off, as it was nothing as I would have expected!

We meet Iolanthe and Titus in a very unexpected and dangerous situation, with no memories of themselves or each other, and boy with how much I love them teamed up and together, seeing them start again from scratch was both tough but also terribly endearing and heartwarming!

The action moves from the very life threatening present to the past while we try to piece together what happened to them to find themselves where they do and without memories, and it's agonizing! I couldn't turn the pages fast enough!

The plot twistes itself quite a bit in this one, with disagreements, Iolanthe having issues with her destiny or lack thereof, Titus being a bit of an arse at some point of another, but not enough to make you dislike him, just to shake your head at him and his one-mindedness about the prophecies.

Many of the twists were game changers and some of them are in even better appreciated once you read the final book! This review is a bit more vague, but I really don't want to end up spouting spoilers if I get overenthusiastic talking about the book!

Once again, great fantasy book with awesome world building, characterization and impeccable pacing & plotting. Very well deserved 4 to 4.5 stars!



 The Immortal Heights by Sherry Thomas

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


My Alyssa Recommends book for November and another resounding success! I really loved this one to bits! It started right where the last book left us, with quite a cliffhanger by the way, and it put us straight into the action & the battle! Wyverns, lightning, very very frightening! (errm, sorry, I got carried away with the Queen reference there...).

I'm gonna struggle with this review not because I didn't love this book, because I did and very much so, but because I feel like going into it knowing as little as possible will make the reading experience even better!

Let's just say that the books is action packed, Iolanthe is her awesome self, Titus has a few somewhat understandable lapses of judgement where we can understand his point but we also want to shake him for it. The Bane is damned scary, war is ranging and no one is safe. More prophecies come into play and there are casualties.

And if the tension of everything else is not enough, and it'd say it really is, when we get to the epilogue, Sherry Thomas shakes us once again so we don't get too comfortable!

Quite probably my favourite book of the three of them, very much deserving of 4.5 stars!


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