Maybe too much time has passed since I read Iron Flame, but I swear I spent most of Onyx Storm in a state of confusion. There needs to be something like, “previously, in the Empyrean series…” just to catch readers up. There are a lot of characters and their corresponding dragons/gryphons, so the names were a bit overwhelming at times. I also lost the plot a few times. Things were foreshadowed that never panned out, for no good reason (looking at you, court martial). 

I basically detested Violet in this book. She was wholly consumed by Xaden and made a billion questionable choices because of that. She has this superhero complex where she feels bad if she can’t save the world, but she’s off obsessing about a boy. I get that they have this epic love, but at some point, maybe cut your losses? Xaden was a bit annoying, too. He’s all, “I can’t touch you, my full turn to venin is inevitable, I’ll hurt you, blah blah blah,” but he actually just keeps showing up. That obviously is going to mess with Violet’s head. 

I really felt like Onyx Storm wasn’t a full book of its own. Hear me out… the entire book read like the setup and background for the next book in the series. There are zero questions answered, and nothing really of note happens. In most middle-of-the-series books, things happen and story arcs are fulfilled. We just don’t have that here. There’s only some references to the previous books, so we don’t even necessarily get a continuation of the story, other than the Xaden/venin thing. There was also some plot lines in the book that didn’t make sense. Introducing Xaden’s mother added NOTHING to the story; it just gave him yet another reason to be brooding. 

Finally, can there be a penalty for the egregious use of italics (sorry, 🏈 is on the brain)? I’m not talking about bond-speak, I’m talking about the overuse of emphatic italics. The beauty of language is that the author’s point can be made through tone, context, and word usage, without having to depend on typographical tools. Give your readers more credit!