Storm from the East by Joanna Hathaway is book two in her Glass Alliance series. YA fantasy, with political intrigue. Book 2 continued the great storytelling from the first and was enjoyable to read.

I have elected not to read and review this book due to time constraints. Thank you for the opportunity.

This is one of the best sequels I’ve ever read and honestly I cannot think of a thing that I would have liked to see done differently or anything that didn’t work for me.

It is clear how much care and meticulous thought Joanna Hathaway has put into these characters and this story and I am thrilled to see the culmination of Athan and Ali’s story in the final book. I NEED to see what happens after the prologue from the first book!

Truly though, Hathaway’s writing is beautiful and the way she’s interwoven such personal stories of love and courage and struggle in with the greater and darker backdrop of war, while still propelling the story forward and not getting lost, makes this one of those rare stories I’ll forever treasure.

Highly recommend these for any type of reader.

I was very curious what would happen in this book, and I was truly not disappointed. This story built up such a great pace and momentum, and ended in such a big scene. I cannot wait to see what will be happening next. It was a great in between to see what will happen in the next book.

I would like to thank Tor and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in advance. Before talking about the book, I would like to apologize for sending my review later than expected. I was going dealing with some personal issues, and unfortunately, because of that I was forced to pause my activities as a book reviewer. Now that everything is more calm I can resume my activities. Here I present you my review of Storm from the East.

From the first time I saw this book on Netgalley I was captivated, so I decided to read the first part of this series. Once I was done, I had to ask for the opportunity to read and review the continuation of the story because it is amazing. I was more than happy when the approval mail showed on my inbox.

This book starts with action. We are going to be right there in the middle of a combat, and we will see through the eyes of the characters the consequences of a war. Athan and Aurelia are now separated, each of them fighting at different sides of the war. The two lovebirds will eventually reunite, however, even though they would love for things to be "normal" again, they both know that is not going to happen.

Unveiled secrets that should have stayed buried deep have come to hunt the lives of each of our protagonist. Now they know that the war is not their only problem, and that there are some things that should never be shared.

This book is just going to keep you at the edge of the seat from beggining to end. The universe the author has created is complex and unique, yet it is so very well developed that everything falls into place. Every detail has been taken into consideration for us to follow along wherever the story decides to take us. If the first book was good and captivating, this one is astonishing and mesmerizing.

Amazing and complete characters, both the protagonists and the secondary ones, are what makes this story richer. Their presence is important beacuse through the eyes of them we are able to see the reality of the people that live in the now terrorized country. But not just that, because thanks to Athan's soldier friends we are also introduced to how the military life is.

Shocking revelations, epic battles and brathtaking are the three words I would use to describe this book. I would love for you to give this book a chance because it really is amazing, it can be dense and complex but I can assure you that your time is being very well invested.

Unfortuantely, I did not get the chance to read this ARC prior to the book's publication, but we did end up buying it for our library collection since book one has gone over so well.

Thank you Netgalley for the chance to read and review this title. I will review this title at a different date.

Ahhh! What can I even say about this book! So so good. I went ahead and re-listened to Dark of the West. The first time around I actually read Dark of the West since I got approved for an early Arc. But the audiobook was done perfectly. The narrators did an amazing job bringing this book to life. Sadly, with school keeping me so busy I did not get a chance to finish reading Storm from the East, so I went ahead and bought the audiobook so I could finish it quicker.

It was so nice to get back to Aurelia and Aiden's world. They are such great characters that have to make some tough decisions. Even tougher than what they went through in the first book. But I love how much they matured in this one. They both know what's best for their people even if it's not what they want for themselves.

I loved this second book so much! You think you know these characters from the first book but there has been so much growth in all of them, and we get to meet some new characters. I don’t want to get into too much and spoil anything, but if you loved the first book, I know you will love this one. It’s so hard to put down and stop listening. The story progresses so well and the characters are so dang lovable. I most definitely recommend this book! Joanna is such a sweet author and I just love her. Last year I won an awesome bookmark and pin from her on Instagram with a sweet little note! I love it when authors do such cool things like that.

I need the last book in my hands right now!

I definitely think my expectations for this series exceeds what I am actually given. I was so excited for this series when I first heard about it, being a massive fan of The Winner’s Trilogy. However, I just don’t think that’s a fair comparison. I liked book 1, but did not particularly love it, but still had hope for the second book enough to keep an eye out for it. But I just can’t bring myself to do anything more than skim read the majority unfortunately. While I’m sure many will love this series, it’s just not for me.

Unfortunately I never received the first book of the series, so I was unable to review this book. Thank you for sending it to me, though! I think I will read it someday, whereupon I will update this review, but for now, that is not the case and I'm not able to buy the first book.

Please be aware that the star rating given is not indicative of my thoughts of the book, merely an "average" rating for a book I was not able to read.

Storm from the East picks up right where its predecessor left off and adds intrigue, alliances, and difficult ethical decisions to the already brimming story. The plot moves even faster in this book; gone are Aurelia and Atman's romantic trysts through the castle grounds of Resya; now war is not just a fear but a reality, and both protagonists find themselves caught up in the middle of it. A major plot twist about Aurelia's mother in the middle of the book also hugely increases the stakes and suspense.

My biggest critique of this one is that it didn't seem believable that Aurelia still doesn't know Athan's true identity: does she never question how he is so familiar with the general? Has she really not once noticed the family resemblance between Athan and his father and brothers? I was also really disappointed when Athan and Aurelia abandon all their problems and responsibilities to sleep together for five days, even while both internally monologuing about what a terrible idea this is. Those scenes really cheapened the book for me since I had previously seen the two as more sensible and willing to sacrifice their romance for the bigger picture.

I really enjoyed "Dark of the West" when I read it last spring. It wasn't a book that had been on my radar much, but I was instantly drawn in by the complicated world-building and the even more complicated deep dive into themes regarding revolution, warfare, and a world shifting between monarchy, democracy, and everything that lies in between. The sweet romance between our two teenage main characters who represent vastly different positions was also a big draw. So, when I saw the sequel was coming out, I placed a request immediately. I did struggle with this one a bit more than the first, but it still comes out solidly in the "win" category. 


Athan and Aurelia are separated by much more than distance, as Athan, unknown to Aurelia, is the son of the war-mongering leader of the Safire nation. They now find themselves involved on opposite ends of a war to determine the future of the last kingdom of the South with a monarchy at its heart. Aurelia finds herself in this capital in an attempt to use her family connections through her mother (born a Southerner herself) to stave off a growing war. But while there, Safire makes its move, and with it Athan, leading the aerial forces, they draw ever neared to the city where Aurelia is staying. But as they each move unknowingly closer together, they discover new truths about their parents, about themselves, and about the people and causes they're fighting for. 

This is a complicated book, and that's both a good and bad thing. One way in which this complication is a good thing is the very honest approach it takes to themes that are very complicated and all to often are written about in black and white terms, with good guys and bad guys seeming to pop straight from the earth fully formed in their one-sided moralities. But this book lives in shades of grey. At one point or another, the reader finds themselves sympathizing with every angle involved in this quickly changing world. And I say angle, and not side, because that's another good thing the book does: there aren't just two sides to the conflicts here. Sure, it's a war with one country invading another. But we also see the complicated relationships that allies have with both the invaders and those being invaded. There are other forces involved as well. Some would call them terrorists, others would call them freedom fighters. These names are completely dependent on who is doing the telling and who is listening, and even that can change with just the slightest readjustment of context, history, and priorities. But this same nuanced look at the fact that there are no "good guys" in war also leaves the reader in a precarious state, emotionally.

At the beginning of the story, it is all too easy to dismiss Aurelia's viewpoints and plans as foolishly optimistic. And they are. Of the two main characters, she has the more limited view of  the world. Growing up in a privileged and traditionally monarch-ruled country has left her with a very simplistic idea of how the world work. Like many young people, she thinks that only she sees the full picture and if others would simply listen to an argument from her, they'd all see that their feuds are pointless and agree to a peaceful resolution. It was both heart-breaking and a relief to see her have to confront the folly of these views.

But it was also just a very depressing story arc, overall. By the end, between Athan's struggles in the midst of some truly terrible acts of warfare and Aurelia's slow sink into the grim realities of the world, it was hard not to feel a bit hopeless. We see all the shades of grey. We see all the wrongs committed by every group, each playing victim and aggressor in different points of history and with regards to various groups. It's very realistic and believable, but also a tough story to feel happy reading. 

I also wish there was a prequel series to this story. We learn much more about both Athan and Aurelia's parents in this book, and it's all pretty fascinating. One part really stood out, a moment when Aurelia discovers a secret about her mother and realizes, in a very honest and true-to-life moment, that her mother was a person with a life before Aurelia was born. It was the kind of moment that is hardly ever felt in YA books. Aurelia comments that she has fallen into the trap of feeling like these conflicts and histories all started in her own life. But this moment reminds her that people had lives, had fights, had secrets, had allegiances and enemies, all long before her. That she was plopped down in the middle of it all. Just like her parents were plopped down in the middle of it all. And back. I loved this thought. Like I said, most YA books do nothing to discourage this way of thinking in its protagonists, that the world starts and ends with them. And yes, they are the main character of their story and thus their's is the one we care about, but it's a nice reminder that there is more to it than all of that. I mean, most YA books either kill off the parents or conveniently forget to mention them for much of the story. They definitely rarely presented as fully fledged people with histories of their own (outside of some direct connection to the main character). But this series is really excelling at creating a story that is clearly about Athan and Aurelia but still puts them down in the middle of an already complicated world, not making them the whole world in and of themselves. 

But yes, it's all very complicated. Having a year-long break between these two books was frankly very challenging. It took me a long time to re-orient myself to the world and the players in it. I've been reading e-ARC versions which don't have maps, and I'm not sure if the finished books do either? If not, they could really benefit from one. It took me quite a while in the first book to picture this world, and almost just as long here in the second to re-create it in my mind. And all the weavings in and out of secret relationships and allegiances were hard to keep up with. I'd have to constantly remind myself who knew what, who had betrayed whom, and which of our main characters knew which pieces of the greater puzzle. It was a lot.

The pacing was also pretty slow in the beginning, so between these two factors, it took a bit to really get into this story. Having liked the first book, I was wiling to do the work, but for anyone feeling more middling about the series, this could be a challenge. But one definitely worth facing if you're looking for a complicated political series! And ultimately, fans of the first book should be happy with this second outing, and, like me, anxious to see where it all ends up in the third book. We still have that prologue from the first book looming over us. How, oh how, do our main characters get to that awful place? And, more importantly, how do they get out of it??

Rating 8: A beautiful, horrible world of greys where I just want my two precious main characters to be happy. 

(Review link will go live 04/01/20)

I think a lot of what makes the Glass Alliance series so successful is that you can see the strategy behind Hathaway’s writing. A good strategy is how wars can often be won, after all.

DARK OF THE WEST spent it’s time laying out the groundwork. We’re introduced to Hathaway’s vast world and all of it’s geo-political strife. We meet characters from both sides of the war, and are gradually made to fall in love with each and every one. Love here can mean any number of things: admiration, fascination, a loathing coupled with respect. You get pulled in, and the investment is inevitable. And the series is all the better for it, because STORM FROM THE EAST takes that groundwork and runs. It’s the storm. It captures the grittiness and harsh realities of warfare, exposing the characters to betrayal, and loss. Hathaway does not shy away from the horrors that accompany war, but she balances these travesties with love, and with hope.

These carefully balanced elements are provided through the perspectives of Hathaway’s protagonists, Princess Aurelia Isendare and pilot Athan Dakar—two lovers trapped on opposites sides of the war. As the story progresses, their roles expand to reflect upon the ways in which warfare affects both the soldiers who must wield the weapons, but the civilians caught in the crossfire. We witness how war shapes and changes those who endure it. Aurelia relinquishes the comforts of royalty, forgoing old complacencies to throw herself actively into the war effort to try and bring about peace. Meanwhile, Athan takes to the skies, assuming an active role in the thick and heat of battles. He watches his comrades, his friends, die. Hathaway does not gloss over these deaths, and the details are not easy to read. Nor should they be.

Hathaway is a masterclass at writing battle sequences that are as epic in their scope as they are immersive and harrowing to read. These scenes are intense, and make you feel as though you’re sitting in the cockpit yourself, heart pounding in your chest.

Through all of this, though, the heart of Hathaway’s story comes back to the characters, and the smaller scale warring that occurs, not between kingdoms, but between people. Families. Lovers. The relationships in STORM FROM THE EAST are just as intricate, dynamic, and complex as they were in DARK OF THE WEST—perhaps even more so, because now the stakes are much higher than before. Families are complicated, messy things accompanied by complicated, messy emotions. You can love and hate a sibling, a parent, all at the same time. Once again, Hathaway captures this beautifully, particularly through the scenes involving the Dakar brothers (Arrin, I’m looking at you).

STORM FROM THE EAST also introduces us to several new faces, and I found myself drawn in different ways to each and every one. Even with so many characters in play, I never felt overwhelmed (or confused about who’s-who, which can often come to pass in casts of this scope). Rather, I came to care more about them, even in such a short time, because it highly possible that any of them wouldn’t survive to see the end of a chapter.

Unsurprisingly though, it is Aurelia and Athan who continue to steal the show. Given how DARK OF THE WEST concludes, you’re desperate for these two to be together again. Hathaway does not rush this reunion, and it makes it all the more sweeter when it finally comes to pass. Their moments together act very much like a reprieve from the war—an escape. Small moments of happiness, of peace. A glimpse of what could be, and what I found myself hoping for.

STORM FROM THE EAST builds on the successes of it’s predecessor, and is a story that gets better and better the further on it goes. We already know where things are heading. We’ve known since the story began, and now it’s just a matter of exactly how we’re going to find our way there, and what will come after we arrive. But, there is no author I trust more than Joanna Hathaway to lead the way.

Storm from the East takes the gut wrenching of Dark of the West and twist the knife a little deeper.

It’s amazing to me how in depth and extensive the world building, politics and war are in the book. I admit I sometimes get lost but always find my way back. It’s so incredibly impressive how well Joanna Hathaway has her world fleshed out. I mean how does she keep track of all this stuff, she has truly created a whole new world. As I’m reading, I forget sometimes that we are not living in this world because you become so very much immersed.

Aurelia kind of annoyed me in the beginning of the book.I felt like she went through so much in Dark of the West that I was surprised by her naivety. I think by the second half and she has really experienced war, then she starts to change. She finally sees that peace isn’t something you can just walk into a room and demand. Although I think she still has many layers that she hasn’t fully peeled back.

I love Athan. I loved him in the Dark of the West and I still love him Storm from the East. I really just want to take him somewhere and protect him. Don’t make him see more war! He’s really really in the thick of it this time around. Experiencing loss right in front of him instead of the idea of it.

I just want Aurelia and Athan to find some peace and that is just not in the cards. It’s so complicated for them to be in love. They are so accepting of who the other is though.

The Dakar brothers are complicated as well. Sometimes I think they hate one another and then they will have a moment. Like on the beach where they find some kind of common ground. Then they go back to being complicated. It’s an interesting family dynamic.

So I don’t know where we will go from here. Everything feels so complicated all the time but I really want to know how it turns out. Especially with an ending like the one in Storm from the East. Can there ever really be peace.

Oh my god, this was incredible. It was everything I had hoped it would be and more. It answered a lot of questions, but at the same time it left me with even more than I already had. I finally understood why this was called the glass alliance because wow this alliance (all of them actually) could shatter any moment.

Storm from the East is the sequel to Dark of the West. It's a very interesting blend of what we'd consider WWI-era tech with fantasy politics (though the fantasy is more just that it's another world and they have legends and so forth) and a YA doomed-ish love story that was really well-done and definitely left serious questions hanging for a sequel. Well, here we have a sequel and thankfully a lot of those questions are answered!

When I think of fantasy novels, I think of dragons, Hobbits, and elves. This book contains NONE of these elements. It had a lot of the elements I love to find in a story: worldbuilding, intricate plot, surprise plot reveals, romance, female characters finding and coming into their own places in the world. When I started reading, it was a little hard to distinguish between Ali and Athan's narrations, but it became easier as the story went on and I got to know them better. I also lost track of some of the secondary characters for parts of the story, such as the pilots we don't hear from much. I think mentioning names a little more frequently might help with this, or maybe including a cast of characters as I've seen some books do.

One of my favorite things about this series is that it serves as a fantastic reminder that not every good fantasy has to have a magic system. Focusing on technology and bringing in a historical feel to the worldbuilding instead was a refreshing change from most of what I've read lately, especially as the author's passion for airplanes and history shows through in her writing. Overall, I would definitely recommend this series to fans of romance, political intrigue, and historical fiction (even though it is only inspired by the WWII time period, this might be a good overlapping genre book for anyone looking).

Happy Friday y'all! I meant to get this review out on Tuesday, but I wasn't able to finish Storm from the East until yesterday because of work commitments so that's why it's late (ugh adulting). Thank you so much to NetGalley and Tor Teen for giving me the chance to read an eARC of this book! I read an ARC of the first book last year (read my review here) and man, it was really hard for me to get through it because it was super slow (in my opinion) but the end was really good and it got me super pumped for book 2, so when I saw this one on NetGalley, I HAD to request it!

Storm from the East 4/5 Stars

Summary from Goodreads: Battles, revolution, and romance collide in Joanna Hathaway's stunning, World Wars-inspired sequel to Dark of the West

Part war drama, part romance, Storm from the East is the second novel in Joanna Hathaway’s immersive, upmarket YA fantasy series that will appeal to readers of Sabaa Tahir, Marie Rutkoski, and Evelyn Skye.

War has begun, and the days of Athan’s and Aurelia’s secret, summer romance feel a world away. Led by Athan’s father, the revolutionary Safire have launched a secret assault upon the last royal kingdom in the South, hoping to depose the king and seize a powerful foothold on the continent. Athan proves a star pilot among their ranks, struggling to justify the violence his family has unleashed as he fights his way to the capital—where, unbeknownst to him, Aurelia has lived since the war’s onset. Determined to save the kingdom Athan has been ordered to destroy, she partners with a local journalist to inflame anti-Safire sentiment, all while learning this conflict might be far darker and more complex than she ever imagined.

When the two reunite at last, Athan longing to shake the nightmare of combat and Aurelia reeling from the discovery of a long-buried family truth come to light, they’ll find the shadow of war stretches well beyond the battlefield. Each of them longs to rekindle the love they once shared . . . but each has a secret they’re desperate to hide.

Unfortunately, this book started out a little bit like book one, in that I thought that it was a little bit too slow and there wasn't anything that really pushed me to keep wanting to read until maybe the 50% mark- but man once I hit page 270 in the eARC, I could not put it down and I 100% read it during lunch and any time I had a free moment! Don't get me wrong, interesting things happen before page 270, but they just didn't seem to be happening in quick enough succession for me at that point.

I really liked how it seemed as though Aurelia grew up in this book- in book 1 she seemed too much like a child to me, so I didn't like her chapters as much as I liked Athan's. In this book, I liked both of their chapters equally. I'm so excited to see where Hathaway takes things in book 3!

Have you read Storm from the East? Let me know what you thought of it! And if not, definitely go check it out!

The publisher and Netgalley provided me with a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I fell in love with this war-torn world in Dark of the West. It's filled with vigilantes, saviors, refugees and revolutionaries. Two young lovers are thrown into the chaos and burden of the violence surrounding them, confronting impossible choices and damning truths.

Athan and Aurelia forged a bond despite their distrust and disguises. Their love is a defiant stand against the families and forces that have shaped them. Athan will finally earn the black marks on the wings of his fighter plane - a pilot on the front lines. Aurelia will finally step out of the shadows and gather the courage to make her enemies face truths they seek to deny.

As they chase their separate destinies, their actions thrust them further apart. The words between them will become ominous and inadequate.

This series, though set in a fictional world, is one of the truest depictions of war's inevitable destruction and the consequences of greed.

I absolutely loved Storm from the East. It did an amazing job of building on the romance and plot of the first book. The stakes felt higher, more places and characters (all interesting) were introduced, and the character arcs really felt well developed. I think the novel does good with expanding on the moral questions and challenges of war introduced in the first book and presents very unique and complex characters. I think this was an amazing middle book - it felt like it had a real purpose and arc to it, while still building to something more. Also, I'm just so invested in all of the characters. There isn't a single character I don't want to have more scenes with, and there's so many mysteries to each of them that I want to find out.

“… the more you read, the less you want to be quiet. What’s the point in learning about the world if you can’t do a thing about it?”

Storm from the East is the sequel to Dark of the West and continues to pull strong, well-written punches.

The level of knowledge behind political machinations and war that have been lovingly inserted into this book definitely speaks of the care that the author has for these types of stories. I’m not really one for war novels and often find myself thinking “when will we just skip to the romance”, however it was the actual political aspects of war and the ramifications that choices have which kept me interested throughout this entire novel.

Ali and Athan both have their own lessons to learn and their own stories to come into, which gets developed really well throughout the book. Ali is quickly becoming a favourite heroine of mine, especially with her desire to bring truth and justice to the world no matter the personal cost to herself. She is finding out what she stands for and once she identifies this, she doesn’t back down.

”No one ever told me this secret thing, that to be small is not to be helpless. It’s to be angry”

Athan is struggling with the realities of war and the realities of his actions and choices. It’s quite difficult to read him spiralling through these introspections, but they offer an important perspective of someone who is trapped by their birth - but wanting to be better.

The last 50% blew my mind and there’s not a whole lot that I can say without going into spoiler territory, so I won’t touch on it - other than to say it was extremely well planned and well written.

Thank you to Macmillan-Tor/Forge and NetGalley for a copy of an eARC in exchange for an honest review.