Review: A Betrayal of Storms by Ben Alderson

Blurb:

With the political intrigue and high heat of A Court of Thorns and Roses and From Blood and Ash, A Betrayal of Storms is perfect for readers who enjoy stories full of magic, romance, and adventure... but with added spice.

Half-fey Robin Vale has grown up amongst humans, but that doesn’t save him from being captured for coin by fey hunters. When he’s rescued by a fey princess, he’s taken to Wychwood, the fey realm—where everyone is focused on preparing for war against the humans who hate, hunt, and kill them for coin.

Robin doesn’t understand how he fits into the fey’s plans—until he’s revealed to be the lost heir to the Icethorn Court. Aided by the unclaimed, destructive power of the Winter Court, which had been thought destroyed with Robin’s mother’s death, the fey ready their numbers for complete domination of the human realm.

But by claiming the throne with the help of his devastatingly handsome personal guard, Erix, Robin’s very presence opposes the long-planned invasion. Along with his allies—including Althea, a stern princess hellbent on stopping the human hunters from killing her kin—Robin is thrust into a world of betrayal, murder, and lies. He must survive long enough to have the choice—listen to fate and claim his family’s power, or let it wreak havoc on a realm that turned its back on him for becoming who he was truly meant to be.

“Have you grown soft, Althea?” —
“Silk is soft,” Althea replied, “but can still strangle the largest of men. Remember that.” —Chap 18

Review:

Story

Firstly, I’d like to say that I have been following Ben Alderson on TikTok for a while. In fact, I’m pretty sure he is one of the first queer indie authors I followed there. After my first foray into fae fantasy went a little awry, I was ecstatic when his own fae book went on sale and boom - on my TBR. I was so excited because, for me, his marketing on TT is on point. Having said that, I found myself… underwhelmed by the book. 

I was at around the 40% mark when I started questioning myself if I should finish it. And I was at the 62% mark when I thought I could write a review even if I DNFed. I did finish the book, but only because I was already invested in finishing it as a book, not as a story. Now, although I kept on finding myself distracted by other stuff and needing a reward to finish a chapter, I’m glad I did. 

Maybe it’s the whole fae concept in fantasy just isn’t for me, but the usual magical concepts involved around that world are ones I could get behind in any other fantasy story. What happened with A Betrayal of Storms is that I got thrown off balance right away. Now, I didn’t do a Look Inside for the book, so maybe that’s on me, but as I said - I follow Ben on TikTok and love watching his videos. They grab attention and entertain. They sell. They make me buy. I have 2 of his books! This one, I read the blurb, loved the cover, and when I opened the book I was completely thrown by the first person POV.

What? I didn’t catch that anywhere! After talking with a friend who read one of his other books, also in first person, I decided that any future books from him will get that Look Inside button to check before buying. Nothing against the first-person POV, just not for me. I find it very hard to get immersed in those stories and find myself overly critical of the “I” the story is about.

And then the story itself started - right off the bat we got some action. Good! I like it. But wait… what was “I’s” name? I’m pretty sure we got one mention of it near the beginning and then nothing at all until a few chapters later. I had to go read the blurb to remind myself. I understand that with first person it’s hard to talk about their names and in an action sequence even more so, but there were enough breaks in between for the character to introduce himself to someone else and remind us his name (and speaking of, Father never did get a name). For someone like me who has a hard time remembering names, I found myself pretty uncaring of the horrible situation the main character was thrown into at the beginning, even though it was an interesting concept - a half fae gets captured along with full fae by human hunters and he ends up discovering a lot more about himself and who he is because of that. Even if the discoveries take some time and the characters around him are annoyingly silent about it for a long time. But even with that strong beginning, I found myself waiting for the action to be over so I could better understand the character and who he was, rather than the situation he was thrown in. 

Ps. Big plus after the fact with the name, is that the nickname “little bird” being used and referenced regularly made it easy to remember the MCs name after the fact (Robin). 

Outside of that, I found the plot pretty basic. It does include a few tropes that are not my favourite, what with the secret heir and power control, but I knew what I was getting into from the blurb with those. The rest of the story seemed quite predictable, though not exactly as marketed on TT. The side characters were awesome, the spice was hot but… awkward… yeah… I wasn’t a fan of the spice as a personal preference, and the use of magical powers and limits was really interesting! I love it when a magic system has limits and consequences for use, and while the consequences seemed pretty basic, the limits definitely got me thinking!

Characters

Speaking of characters - I absolutely loved our ML: Erix. His sass and mocking style really had me entertained and I felt like he was the perfect balance for Robin to both unwind the situation and bring it back to the ground when needed. I love characters who are so devoted to another. It truly felt like, at times, he was the one leading the plot rather than Robin, which made total sense with the story - this is his home turf, he knows it better. 

Having said that, I still question how he fell in love with Robin. Maybe that’s just me and my love of a slow burn, but I didn’t see a reason for him to choose Robin over any of the other characters in the book. The only thing that would make sense to me would be Robin’s powers and status, but that doesn’t make sense for Erix’s character. Or… maybe… he’s not in love with him yet?? Maybe my glasses were a tint too pink? I guess I could have been easily confused between his devotion toward Robin as his personal guard vs love. 

Robin, to me, felt a little too distracted. As in - perfectly distracted. His questions, his sass, his changing moods, they all made sense to me with the situations he was thrown in. I felt his frustrations when nobody would answer his questions. The back-and-forth way he reacts to the way others interact with him was very well done, in my opinion. In fact, there was a scene when he forgot about his father and felt guilty about it - it made sense! It was mean, yes, but I liked the fact that he wasn’t perfect and acted in ways that I didn’t agree with at some points. 

Style

Now, the main reason why I started questioning myself whether I could finish A Betrayal of Storms, after what felt like a rough start for me to get into the story, was the prose itself. Ben is able to paint a really beautiful world with his words with just enough descriptors to give you the outline and let you fill it in over time. However, there are only so many times I can read about feathering muscles and a shadow of a beard. As someone who loves world building and heavy descriptors, a slow build and beautiful prose - I found myself wanting to skim some paragraphs. And when I did, I had to go back and re-read them because I missed something important. 

That was one thing that really stood out to me - I felt like there was very little written that wasn’t there with purpose. Excluding specific word usage, most of the prose led to something more, equally in delivering the information through world building and dialogue. Having said that, I am loath to admit that to me, the book felt like it hadn’t gone through an editor. It really read to me like Ben has a really clean drafting style and left it at that. There were a few awkward sentences where the same word was used multiple times, commas and hyphens in places that didn’t make sense, and some physics that didn’t make sense when I imagined them. 

Outside of that, I did finish the book because A Betrayal of Storms definitely kept going. The pacing was good, the few slow parts were in just the right spots for me, and the action was engaging. There was a lot of very heavy layering of foreshadowing though (is it even still considered that when it’s so heavy?) which made some parts of the plot predictable, and there was a twist that came out of completely nowhere with no way to prepare for - in a way that I didn’t find enjoyable - but the ending was worth the wait. 

The last chapter was phenomenal and I still get goosebumps thinking of how it ended - a perfect hook to get into the rest of the series. However, even though I did enjoy that ending, I won’t be continuing the series. It really does make me question if it’s the fae fantasy that I can’t get into and am overly critical about, or something else. What I do know is that while I won’t be continuing this series, I do have another book by Ben Alderson on my TBR that I will definitely be reading.