The Waking of Storm and Flame, by N. A. Betts

Book Review - 2/5 ⭐⭐ - Adult, Fantasy, Epic

Sep 17, 2025

There were several positives in this story. It had moments which brought deep emotion to me. The arc and premise of the story are solid; however, this story contains many plot flaws.

The easiest way to lose a reader is to confuse them. This story shifted between points of view to the extent that I felt constantly thrown around. Frequent overuse of pronouns led to further confusion. I'll provide an example: "As she ran her hands over her stomach, she realized she’d forgotten–in the commotion of the campaign and the night’s events–that she carried her brother’s child." This is a deeply unfortunate sentence that references two different women. Failure to use the proper name before each pronoun switch not only added confusion but also prevented me from remembering or connecting to character names.

Most characters had two to four names that were used to refer to them. There were several times I went 'wait, that's not two characters?' Adding to my confusion were sound-alike names including: Amélie, Emile, Emmeline, Emmi (a nickname).

If only the problems stopped there, but no. The plot is just as confused as I was.

Warning: Spoilers from here on.

The goal of the story is to unite the world for when Zeion returns to judge the world. The evil group, in an effort to stop this judgment, wants to unite the world? Ultimately the two groups are after the same goal and yet are killing each other because one has goddesses and the other demons? I'm not really sure.

The goddess Drea possessed Alira's father and got him killed; possessed Alira's brother and got him killed. So we blindly trust in this goddess? Make this make sense. Why are we letting Drea continue to possess us? And why are the characters surprised when this doesn't go well? She never felt like the ally she was claimed to be because her actions led to high casualties while not achieving strategic goals, and while providing inconsistent power to various characters.

Avery the immortal. Avery is slammed to the side by a giant monster and left in a motionless lump, fine in the next scene. Hit in the chest with a warhammer and tossed, fine in the next scene, and marching home. Survives a shipwreck, only to suddenly be at death's door because he was thrown from his horse -- just to be saved by deus ex magicka. All of which deteriorated my trust in any and all injuries because it shows the hand of the author. Injuries that should have been life threatening are waved away. Ones that are far less intense, which I didn't even register because 'Avery's survived worse': nope. The plot wanted drama here so he's on death's door.

Zarha. Zarha is being possessed from some fight before the story begins. The possession helps her but is slowly taking over her mind. Zarha is a super-skilled warrior woman capable of killing thousands of trained men. She kills a hundred elite warriors to get to challenge a betrayer in combat, then suddenly... she needs more power and gives into the shadow to kill three people?

Worldbuilding - Still spoilers.

This society has royalty, arranged political marriages, and bloodlines tied to goddesses. This implies a culture highly focused on lineage. Yet, Alira, as the last of her royal family line, one of five bloodlines connected to a goddess, is lusting after a woman, and no one cares that such a union can't have children? There's no push for her to have an heir or a political marriage, no turmoil in the nations over inheritance. The one place where an LGB character does NOT fit with the worldbuilding is where we find one. She was the sole heir, not some fifth sister.

A woman is introduced claiming to be a long lost part of Alira's family line, erased from history books, and is instantly considered legitimate (without records) because she knows the name of a sword? This so-called Aunt didn't bother to show up when a 10 year old was made duke? Plus, there's been zero title claims in the generations since the family fractured. But for some reason, after GENERATIONS, they care enough to build this elaborate plan to marry daughters into royalty, and this unknown, unlanded, erased family was the best possible alliance those nations could make? This stretches my believability too far for the established monarchy system, which I admit isn't explained; but since it's NOT explained, it's left to readers to fill in, and I couldn't make it fit with anything that makes sense to me.

On top of that, if lost members of a blood line are legitimate, no matter how distant (like they might be fifteenth-cousins??) that solves the problem of the family line disappearing. There ought to be countless cousins with at least one percent of one percent of one percent (that's one millionth, which would be a twentieth-cousin according to my husband) then the entire concept of the magic being blood-tied to a few people is logically faulty. Kids having kids makes every generation bigger, and if some long lost blood line counts, then by this time most of the population should count as the 'fate' of these goddesses.

Tropes in this book that, as a woman, I'm tired of:

Women in military
Women just as physically strong if not stronger than men
Women not considered strong unless they behave like men
Miscarriage/Pregnancy loss for shock value

All of this builds a distrust in the worldbuilding for me, because it isn't consistent with itself. The writing delivered well on emotion, but there has to be SOME logic to pair with that, or at least this reader gets kicked out of the story by that. Repercussions of actions aren't considered more than 'this would spice up this section'.

Disagree with my review? Please tell me why. My ears are turned.

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