Bane and Shadow by Jon Skovron
Bane and Shadow by Jon Skovron, Book #2 of Empire of Storms
Introduction
Hope and Red from the first novel of this series have become Bane and Shadow for this novel. Hope is the only woman who has ever been trained in the arts of the Vinchen Warriors, a type of monkish kung-fu sect. She has taken on the persona of the dreaded pirate once called Dire Bane. She sails the seas with her pirate crew chasing the imperial ships of the emperor and the evil sorcerers called biomancers. Red has claimed his birthright as a noble and is now part of the emperor’s inner circle. He is being trained by the biomancers as a weapon. What will Hope do when she finds out how far the biomancers are prepared to go down their evil ways and what will Red do when he is faced with potentially fatal intrigues at court?
Summary
Hope’s story starts with her pirate ship attacking the flagship of Imperial Admiral Brice Vaderton. He will become an interesting viewpoint character later in the book. Hope’s crew discovers that the biomancers have been taking young girls to the island of Dawn’s Light for an unknown evil purpose. Hope is determined to discover the secret and defeat the biomancers. They look for ships and supplies at New Laven. Nettles returns to her old life as a thief and a gangster to get the ships and supplies. She becomes an important viewpoint character. Hope takes her flotilla to Dawn’s Light and fights the biomancers.
Red has taken his birthright as the Lord Pastinas. He goes to court at the Imperial Palace on Stonepeak and is trained by the biomancers as an assassin. He becomes friends with the emperor’s heir, Prince Leston. Red flirts with wealthy, witty, and beautiful Lady Merivale Hempist but remains devoted to Hope. He must determine who has been murdering the common people of Stonepeak. The murderer is stealthy and is called the Shadow Demon.
Recommendation
This is a great fun novel. The mash-up of genres continues from the first novel called Hope and Red. Hope and Red have clear motivations and struggle to achieve their objectives. The only problem is that this is a middle novel. Their final confrontation with the biomancers will not occur until the third novel. I wish that Hope and Red had some scenes together in this novel. Brigga Lin has a couple of good scenes but should have had more to do in this novel. The third novel is called Blood and Tempest and is scheduled to be released in November 2017. I have ordered it and I plan to read it ASAP.
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads page of Bane and Shadow by Jon Skovron.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29877824-bane-and-shadow
This is the link to my review of Hope and Red by Jon Skovron, Book #1 of Empire of Storms