Turning the Storm (Eliana's Song, #2) by Naomi Kritzer

Turning the Storm (Eliana's Song, #2) Reviews

• 
  Elizabeth Hunter

  Having read the first one, I was interested to see how Kritzer would wrap up all the plots and themes she'd established in Fires of the Faithful. The answer is tidily, but somehow anti-climatically. In her effort to keep the main character realistic, and yet make her all things to all people, she became ever more shadowy. At the same time, the introduction of new characters and intrigues spread the story ever thinner and thinner. I would read more, but I hope she becomes less ambitious in her scope and more ambitious in her craft.
• 
  Sara Norja

  This was better than the first book, but I still did not feel an emotional connection. Also am frustrated that I had the wrong expectations for these books: I'd thought the f/f relationship would be way more developed and focused on, but instead it's more of a subtle undertone that is talked about more than actually explored in the action.
  
  I basically had similar issues with this as with the previous: the worldbuilding was too full of holes and the world felt small (also - the thing that was called an empire here was basically just a single country??), and Eliana was still somehow detached, and also suffered no serious consequences even from stuff like torture. Maybe I'm just weird for always wanting the consequences to be explored, but I felt like she bounced back from everything way too quickly.
• 
  Eli Poteet

  this is one of those sequels thats better than the first. well done.
• 
  Tony Hisgett

  Many reviewers seem to like this book better than the first one, I’m afraid I didn’t. The first book had many faults with the ‘world building’, but I always felt the story was fairly believable, this one had too many improbable plotlines and several things that made no sense at all, plus it still had the same problems with the ‘world’.
  
  There were several things that I couldn’t understand how they happened e.g. Demetrio was a minor commander of a wasteland slave camp, obviously sent there because the Imperial command didn’t think much of him. He hates the ‘Lupi’ having them beaten and murdered on a regular basis. His camp is eventually overthrown and he runs away. The next time we see him he is in charge of the whole Imperial Army!!??
  Then the author allows Demetrio and Clara to stay in positions of power when the meet the Lupi again. They would have torn Demetrio to pieces as soon as they saw him. They already know Demetrio and Clara hate the Lupi and are scheming and manipulating, but they allow them to stay in a position of power.
  
  Overall there were parts of the story that weren’t bad and I might even have given it three stars, but the rubbish with Clara near the end of the book was ridiculous, she should have been eliminated long before she could cause problems. Even the last page couldn’t alleviate my irritation.
  
• 
  Loton Cagle

  Magical conclusion to Fires Of The Faithful
  
  I am a veteran of fantasies and this one was amazing. The characters were so real. I felt their pain and tribulations. Their struggle to defeat evil. I did not want this story to end. The ending was what I hoped for and I had to wipe the tears from my eyes as the last paragraph concluded. I felt I had lived the story with my friends that I grew to love. They will live in my heart and mind forever. I am sure I will read these two books again. Naomi is an amazingly gifted writer.
  
• 
  Alexis

  Actually probably closer to 3.5/5. I enjoyed this. Religious conflict and social upheaval is a defining feature of this book, and something that the author has conceptualized in a very interesting way. This book also comes out strong on LGBT support, which is nice.
  
  I do echo some of the criticism on world building and character development.
• 
  Sam

  I really enjoyed this sequel. Great pacing and action throughout, as well as were real consequences throughout the rebellion and aftermath. People died and, as with both religions, characters on both sides were portrayed as more than "good" and "evil". The lead, Eliana was easy to like, strong, realistically filled with both idealism and doubts.
• 
  Earwen

  Note: author posted a continuation of the story here
  https://archiveofourown.org/works/128...
  
  I loved this but the events in this book could have been 2 separate books!! Especially the last two chapters had so much packed in. Then again reading those made me anxious on what would happen next so maybe I shouldn't complain it was over quickly.
• 
  Dide

  I actually liked this 2nd book better than the first. Perhaps because it seems to have more action or that I finally got to confirm Eliana's love. Though a number of likeable characters died in this book, I guess overall, it ended the way I hoped it will.
• 
  Paul Close

  Interesting, though uneven. Commander, spy and martre, all in one. The unrelenting corruption of power is a little overdone, but the story holds together and has several parts that work.
• 
  Reni

  I liked this book just as much as the first, and what I wrote about the satisfying handling of the religious themes in my review of the first novel still mostly is true for the second book.
  
  However, I had a couple of new problems with this novel: The first book goes out of its way to show the reader that not all of the heroic rebels are followers of the new (old) faith. Yet, the victory of the rebels over the Circle here appears to be equated with the victory of the Old God over the Lord & Lady: Faith to the Lady becomes heresy. If I were a Lupi still attached to the old religion (i.e. the New Way) I'd feel pretty betrayed. Yet, this is never addressed.
  
  However, I did like the idea of Eliana now having to fight the same forms of extremism rising within the leadership of the Old Way, who have quickly formed their own kind of inquisition. I honestly thought the book would end after the final battle (because there were so few pages left), with the only plot to be still resolved being reuniting Eliana with her love interest. More than that, I expected all the characters to be safe once the fighting was done. But the book surprised me instead with this plot line about the Servi and killed off a character that had grown on me to top it off!
  
  I liked that. I liked that not everything went smoothly for Eliana after her faction had won the civil war, because I felt a lot of the action in this book had already been a bit too smooth, and I loved how the book turned the emporer from an ally into a more ambiguous figure.
  
  If only the events after the battle could have taken up more than the last 15% of the book! In fact, I wouldn't have minded if the book in general had been longer, if it had meant a little more action, a little more obstacles for the heroes to overcome.
  
  Another point that didn't sit well with me was the author emphasising Eliana's boyish looks and repeatedly dressing her in men's clothing. The cross-dressing spy scenes work very well and are probably the most exciting sequences in this book, but associating your queer character with sterotypical traits from the opposite gender could lead to uncomfortable implications for some readers.
  
  Sadly, Eliana herself as a main character remains a bit opaque, even though we see the story filtered through her eyes as a first person narrator. She is likeable enough, but I never felt like I truly knew how she felt about her situation as the newly orphaned leader of the Lupi. The same goes for some of the new characters, especially the new antagonist. Apart from a lust for power Clara's motives are never explored.
  
  It also bothered me how easily some character shrug off their injuries. Eliana complains that the wounds she sustained while being tortured still bother her occasionally weeks later, yet they did not stop her from undertaking an hour long ride right after she was freed. Accordingly Giovanni is able to get up and fight again after he was shot in the arm with a crossbow bolt right after the shaft is removed. He doesn't suffer from cramped muscles or blood loss or anything. It's the myth that there are safe places to shoot a person taken to an extreme.
  
  
  
  What can I say about this series in general apart from that I kinda liked it? A couple of the characters really grew on me, even ones that really came accross as annoying jerks in the beginning. I enjoyed the book's treatment of religion (apart from the Lupi apparently all having turned Redentore in the second volume, and outlawing the old faith/New Way), and I liked the idea of creating magic with music. But, I also feel the book was too short for its ambitions.
  
  I'd probably buy another book from the author, but hopefully she'll settle for a smaller scope or a longer text with her next work.
• 
  Kaitlin

  Unfortunately, I think this series really just wasn't for me. Even though I knew what the plot of the series was coming into this book, I found it weirdly dissatisfying, despite the fact that I also felt like I had to keep reading? It was strange. Also I found the beginning of the book pretty info-dumpy.
  
  The one thing I will say is that the book tends not to fall into the easy answer. It doesn't follow the typical tropes, although I'm not sure all of them were super well set-up.
  
  Given how strangely compelling I found this despite not actually enjoying it very much, I may check out Kritzer's later work, and see if that quality is still there but with a story I enjoy better!
• 
  Sarah

  This is the second book in Eliana’s Song, which is really more like a single book divided into two than a series. The first book is Fires of the Faithful. Having said that, this review will contain spoilers for Fires of the Faithful, so beware.
  
  When the last book left off, Eliana had led a rebellion of prisoners at a forced labor camp, and her new army was working to overthrow the tyrannical government and the magician’s Circle, which had blighted the land. The majority of the rebels were believers of the Old Way, an outlawed religion.
  
  In Turning the Storm, Eliana goes undercover as a spy in the capital city, which may not make complete since but isn’t surprising. The missing love interest, Mira, was dragged off to capital, and the two had to reunite at some point.
  
  However, Mira is just not a very interesting character. Maybe I’m forgetting what she was like in the first book, but in Turning the Storm, she has almost no page time. She’s not developed. How am I supposed to care about the love interest when she’s hardly even in the book?
  
  Turning the Storm also suffered from some dragging sections, mainly the “Eliana as a spy” episode and the last hundred pages or so. The main plot finishes sooner than I expected, but I can understand why Naomi Kritzer chose to do this. While it may have felt draggy, it did allow her to explore and lead to a conclusion some of the themes she’s been working with, most notably religion. I found the direction that took very interesting, but I won’t give anything away.
  
  One of the best things about the Eliana books has been the treatment of the revolution. Too often, fantasy and science-fiction books tend to paint rebellions in black and white, whereas Turning the Storm did a good job of showing the complexity of the situation.
  
  The solution to some plot problems at the end felt rather forced and bit too convenient, and that led to some of my dissatisfaction with the ending. Don’t get me wrong – it wasn’t a terrible ending or anything, I just was frustrated with some aspects of it, although there were other aspects I really appreciated.
  
  I think the major risk that this two book series runs is covering too many topics in too little page space. While I never found it overwhelming, I think some of these ideas could have been explored more if the books or series were longer. Mira certainly needed more page time, the music magic could have used some more as well, and it would have been nice for some of the ideas about religion to get a bit deeper exploration.
  
  However, on the whole, this is still a series worth reading. The plot and characters are enjoyable, and while I might wish for a greater explanation of some elements, Naomi Kritzer does manage to get you thinking.
  
  Originally posted on
  The Illustrated Page.
• 
  HoneycombFromHeaven

  Overall this series gets 3.5 from me, which I round up to four because I related to the protagonist so damn much it was actually a little unsettling, the first time I read it.
  
  Because of this, I would have been inclined to give it an even higher rating when I first finished it, but having read both books a few more times the faults do start to show through. However I'm willing to forgive many of them due to my connection to the character of Eliana.
  
  First, the good. The story is gripping and exciting. The themes of religion are explored really thought-provokingly. I think this particular aspect is very well handled - both religions are presented as nuanced, it's not a good vs evil situation. I also enjoyed Eliana's rapport with Giovanni in this book, it felt natural. I also liked the way the Emperor character was handled, especially at the end, where it turns out he isn't quite the wise and great ruler that poetic justice would expect him to be.
  
  The negative things about this book kind of melt together into one issue: a lot of situations are resolved way too conveniently. New characters pop up at convenient times to push things forward, never to appear again. Eliana suffers terrible injuries only to be perfectly fine a little while later (this same thing happened in the last book too). While I did enjoy the character of Mira, I feel she is a deus ex machina one too many times here.
  The pacing was also a little strange, and I would have liked the last section after the war to have been a little longer! While it was realistic and added greatly to the nuance of both the Old Way religion and the character of the emperor, it kind of came out of nowhere.
  
  I don't know if this is because of the Kindle edition I read which was formatted a little oddly, but there were a couple of things which could have been resolved simply by proofreading: the names of Domenico and Demetrio are switched once; Rafi is mentioned as living in Eliana's old village despite having died earlier. Maybe this is fixed in later editions but little errors like this make it look kind of sloppy.
  
  This is a book I'd recommend to people who like fantasy and alt-history. It has quite a few flaws but ultimately the well-thought-out themes and likeability of the characters redeems it for me. This series was my first from Naomi Kritzer, and these were her first novels apparently. I have hope for this author and I will definitely be checking out more of her work.
• 
  zjakkelien

  My opinion on Turning the storm is sort of similar to that of Fires of the faithful. It has a great heroine, it passes the Bechdel test, and it has a nice story. I did find myself drifting away on occasion. I'm not sure if I can describe what it was, but I was a bit impatient with it at times. I think it would have benefited from a bit more depth regarding the characters. It pains me a little to say it, since I did like the characters. But with the novelty of the story wearing off a bit, I guess I started noticing a certain simplicity in the description of the characters and a bit in the story itself as well. That doesn't mean it wasn't pleasant to read, it was. And if I'm correct this is only the second book of this author, so I have high hopes for her. She had good ideas: I like the male/female equality, I like the way the main characters, Eliana, slowly figures out she likes women and the understated way in which this is described, and I like how she mixes the ideological with the practical when it comes to religion. This is the only fantasy book I can remember that shows a christian-like religion in a positive light, which is already interesting by itself. Of course, the differences she has incorporated (the most important one God being female) are interesting to see as well. What I really like is that a few of the main characters only vaguely believe in either religion, despite the fact that one of their friends is a fervent believer, and that both religions are corrupted at some point by people lusting for power. Even though the fighting parties are mostly divided by religion, it shows people of either religion fighting on both sides, it shows that there are good people and bad people on both sides, and in the end, it shows that neither side is impervious to corruption.
  
  All in all, I would give this book 3.5 stars, because I think the execution could be improved, but given the subject matters, and the original ideas the author incorporates in her book, I'm rounding it of to four.
• 
  John Loyd

  Wow! Fantastic.
  
  Eliana and the Lupis liberated the work camp at Ravenna and set there sights on six more camps in the wasteland. Turning the Storm picks up after they had liberated two of those camps and were planning the attack on a third. That camp had received reinforcements but still fell freeing Eliana's friend Lia. At this point Eliana in talking to her former roommate from the conservatory recaps the events of Fires of the Faithful. The Lupis go to the other camps in the wasteland expecting even fiercer resistance but find none, the guards having vacated. Presumably a strategy to lure the Lupi out of the wasteland where they can be backed up by Magefire. Then we see why, once out of the wasteland a band of five mages deals a devastating blow to the Lupis.
  
  Eliana takes the place of a violinist from Pluma. He had received an invitation to play in Cuore. It requires her to disguise herself as a boy, but no one in Cuore knows what he looks like and it minimizes anyone recognizing Generale Eliana. We are introduced to a new set of characters, adventures, perils and escapes. If I had any complaints about the first book it would be not enough Mira. And we get to see Mira! Not a lot, the story is written first person from Eliana's point of view, and any meetings between the two are clandestine.
  
  I love the characters. Thoroughly enjoyable, never bogged down, it had tense moments, at points it made me smile (ah Ulisse, if only you knew.) and it made me cry. In the end it left me abundantly satisfied. I loved the scenes with Mira. The scenes with Giovanni, Michel, Quirano, Ulisse and even with the fedele priestess were great, too.
  
  You could read this without having read the first book, but there are lots of spoilers I would suggest reading Fires first, it's excellent, but if you can't hunt it down Turning the Storm by itself will do.
• 
  Stella

  I first read these books when I was probably too young to read them - back when my bedtime was 8 o'clock and I still had to hide my books in the cabinet when I was reading them instead of taking a shower. (Actually, I distinctly remember rereading them at this point, so it's possible I read them for the first time even younger than that.) My love for them has not diminished in the slightest. It's possible it has grown. I still could not put down Turning the Storm. Mira/Eliana is everything I could ever want out of a fictional love story, and Giovanni's letter still breaks me down every single time I read it. Does this duology have its flaws? Certainly, it isn't perfect, but I love so many of the characters (but particularly Mira and Giovanni) that I can forgive it, even now.
• 
  Kirsten

  Sequel to Fires of the Faithful. Pretty good - fewer battle than the first (I don't much like battles, and find them difficult to follow) and much less theology as well (which meant I sometimes got a little confused on some of the finer points). But a lot of major plot points get jammed in on top of each other, and the ending does feel a bit rushed. But it is also a very good ending. A mixed bag, but interesting and not necessarily a typical fantasy novel.
• 
  Kelly

  This book has been on my tbr shelf for 2 years, I was waiting for 'fires of the faithful' to come up somewhere [ebay/2nd hand] it was quite a hard find, as soon as I got hold of a copy, there was nothing left to do but read it. If the first book was an unexpected surprise, this one by far surpassed it in my love. A great fantasy in a small book, not too confusing, a few big plot teasers and twists but nothing that will outfox you. A great series to get you hooked on fantasy forever!
• 
  Brianna

  I just love it when I pull a book at random from the library's sci-fi/fantasy shelf and enjoy it as much as I did Turning The Storm.
  
  My taste leans much more towards sci-fi than fantasy, but this book and its fantasy elements left me wanting more.
  
  I'm always drawn to strong women in literature, and the character of Eliana didn't disappoint.
• 
  victoria.p

  sequel to
  Fires of the Faithful
• 
  Jess Penhallow

  At the start I didn't feel that this was a good as the previous book in this series but it picked up towards the end when portraying the realities of leadership. I just wish there had been more of that and less of the silly spy stuff. Still an enjoyable read and a nice original series.
• 
  Ry Herman

  A good conclusion to the story, and one that's willing to keep things a bit messy and not necessarily a happily-ever-after for everyone. The writing was overall stronger than in the first book, although there were one or two plot twists which were implausible enough that they didn't really work, and made things a bit easier for the heroine than they realistically should have been. Still, the book was on the whole an engaging piece of work.