I like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me a chance at reading this book.

I think the magic is still confusing this time around, and the plot for the first book didn't really help me with what I needed to know the second time around.

Still yelling at everyone that this is one of the most underrated under talked about YA fantasies on the market and that's saying a lot because I am an adult SFF reader but THIS! this kept me on my toes. This series takes tropes and makes them interesting and even creates new elements within them. This is the sequel to Weave The Lightning and it kept up the pace for sure! The magic structure was expanded upon and I can't wait to see what this author has in store for future releases.
Full review to come on YouTube.

I read Weave the Lightening earlier this year as part of a project to read books I've gotten in book boxes and I loved it! (That'll teach me to sit on books) This series is such an interesting blend of a fictional communist Russia but with some areas of extremely forward thinking. Queer and polymerous relationships are universally accepted and genders are identified by the amount of earrings someone decides to wear, not their genitals. Yet the general populous is overworked and starving constantly being abused by their wealthy overlords. The storm based magic system is really cool and different from anything I've read before.

Many 2nd books in series suffer from a slump as the author tries to build the plot and expand the world. This book had a bit of a struggle in the middle, knocking the rating down to 4 stars instead of 5, but honestly not as bad as other books I've read. I'm looking forward to seeing where this series goes in the next book.

This was a solid sequel to Weave the Lighting. We learned more about the characters and saw good character development. It had a good pace and kept me interested in what would happen next. Looking forward to the final installment of this trilogy!

I really enjoyed returning to this Soviet-inspired world of storm magic, as stakes rise and loyalties are tested.

There is a reason I always try to re-read books before reading the next instalment. My memory is an absolute sieve for details, both big and small. (I made dinner between finishing the book and writing the review, and in that time forgot Gerrit was not Garrit!) Unfortunately, I didn't have the option to re-read WEAVE THE LIGHTNING before diving into this book, but I managed alright. THE STORM'S BETRAYAL does a good job of including the relevant details of the previous book when they're needed so I didn't feel completely adrift. By the end of the book, I think I'd more or less pieced together the first book.

I checked back on my review of WEAVE THE LIGHTNING, to see if that would give me any hints as to the plot (NOPE, well done, past Sifa), but I noticed that I'd commented on being confused about the magic and some action scenes last time around. That problem did not crop up this time. For one, Celka is being formally taught in this book, so we the reader get that grounding in theory too. This helped with the action sequences too.

Gerrit and Filip were my favourite characters in this book. I think only Gerrit and Celka were POVs in the previous book, but Filip's POV stole a lot of my attention. I like characters with a big internal struggle between the path their on and their morals, so naturally I preferred the two boys over Celka in this one. Filip starts off in the loyal soldier mentality and has to fight that, and Gerrit starts off the rebellious son of the leader.

Gerrit was definitely my favourite. I loved how his actions and perspective shifted as he tried to protect himself and give himself the tools to carry on without revealing his secrets. Basically, I love a good tragedy, and then I loved how he semi-pulled out of it by the ending, but it had altered his direction and beliefs. That's about as much as I can say without giving away too many spoilers, but it was so compelling.

There is one more book to come, and fingers crossed it's out next year so I can find out how it all ends.

One of the best kinds of sequels- a book that expands and deepens on the characters and plot introduced by its predecessor and left me at the ending going 'no ait- and then what happened?'. It was great to meet Celka, Filip and Gerrit again and see how their actions at the end of the first book plunged them into a world that was darker and more political, as most of the events of this instalment are set in the Bourshkanyan military.

I found that the concept of 'sousednia' and storm-magic was much easier to understand this time around, and thought taking it forward into new ways of using that power was an interesting and natural progression from what we'd seen in the first book. I liked how Celka was developing- but some of the plot beats with Gerrit, while understandable, sometimes seemed like a bit too much, or too sudden (I won't elaborate here for concern of spoilers!).

Overall though, I really enjoyed this book and can't wait for the next instalment.