Breakwater by Shannon Mayer (The Elemental Series Book 2)

5 stars

It is no secret that I love Shannon Mayer.  Her Rylie Adamson series is amazing.  The first book in this series is a great start to a whole new world that Mayer has built around elementals.  The part that I didn’t enjoy about the first book is that Lark gets dumped on repeatedly.  This is a personal preference of mine.  I have a hard time watching movies or reading books where the main character can’t seem to catch a break and is constantly beaten down.  However, in reading this series it is easy to see that Lark is going to one day rock my socks off with how awesome she is and hopefully get some retribution (not necessarily vengeance) for her years being crapped on.

This book takes off pretty much where the first book left us.  The Big Bad (Cassava) is gone but still out there like a black cloud in the distance.  An Ender from the first elementals has come to lay a claim to charge Lark with the fire elementals that she and Ash killed in Book 1.  In order to get her out of the way, her father sends her to the water elementals as a bodyguard for her much hated sister, Belladonna. 

It doesn’t take long for both Belladonna and Larkspur to realize that they probably won’t survive their trip and they have been set up.  They just don’t know by whom.  Was this their fathers way of getting these two out of the way.  Can Ash be trusted?  The bad guy in this book is a pretty big heavy hitter as far as elementals go.  There is a lot of political turmoil in the water realm (The Deep) as the half brother of the rightful heir has taken over using cruelty, starvation, murder, torture.  You name this guy will do it in order to maintain control of The Deep.  We soon learn that his plans don’t just involve The Deep and Belladonna and Lark are in more trouble that they thought. 

I loved reading about the water elementals and their home.  It was amazing and deadly!  I can’t wait to read about more of the other elementals.  I also love how Lark is gaining some of her powers.  I hated that she was helpless in many areas against the elementals and it is awesome that she is able to kick some butt.  I don’t hate Belladonna quite as much and hate Lark’s father a little bit more.  Can’t wait for more!  

Recurve (The Elemental Series Book 1) by Shannon Mayer

4.5 stars

I was hoping this series would be as captivating as the Rylee series.  The story starts out in a dream.  I wasn’t completely captivated by the dream, but I get why it needed to be there.  From this dream we can understand the entire backstory of the main character.  After this point I was hooked.  I hate books or movies where the main character is repeatedly dumped on, but it wasn’t overbearing in this book.  Perhaps because Larkspur (main character) handles it so well. 

Larkspur is an illegitimate child of the king.  Larkspur is an earth elemental, but has no abilities to speak of with the earth.  She is judged and degraded because of this.  She doesn’t live with the other kings children and has a very tenuous relationship with the queen (obviously not her mother).  Lark has no other family and few friends.  She does have a boyfriend who luckily is not present often as he is overbearing and unlikeable (probably on purpose). 

The real story begins when Lark goes to her father during her “regularly scheduled time” to sit beside him as he hears complaints from his subjects.  There is a farmer who is having trouble with his trees.  There is a sickness that is spreading.  Lark feels for the farmer as planting is her only skill.  She ends up dismissed for the night from her father, but summoned by the queen to her chambers.  This sets off the entire series of events as this night Lark is accused of attacking the queen.  Her only options after this are banishment or training to become an Ender (the King’s guard…or as Lark soon learns…the queen’s guard). 

Banishment is out of the question and Lark actually looks forward to being an Ender.  She would finally have a place in her father’s kingdom.  Obviously the training is gruesome and even more so for Lark without her natural powers with the Earth.  Her training actually goes well, but things in the rest of the kingdom are not.  The disease with the trees is spreading to the elementals and soon Lark finds herself as one of the only ones who can help the people.

Wonderful story.  I loved every second of it.  Can’t wait for the second one.