Lucky for us, 2025’s most anticipated book was a January release, so we didn’t have to wait long to be traumatized by Rebecca Yarros this year.

If you haven’t read Fourth Wing [Buy Bookshop Amazon LibroFM] and Iron Flame [Buy Bookshop Amazon LibroFM], then you should probably bookmark this and come back later, lest you be spoiled.

You have been warned. Spoilers for books one and two ahead.

Onyx Storm [Buy Bookshop Amazon LibroFM] picks up pretty close to the end of Iron Flame and all that cliffhanger chaos. Violet believes she can find the cure for Xaden after he channeled and started turning venin. She’s also pretty sure finding Andarna’s family is important to finding a cure, so she gets a squad together to island hop in search of the seventh breed of dragon.

And that’s a much shorter explanation of what’s going on than you’ll actually find in the book. Because… what on earth….

I thought I was losing my mind with how much I was struggling to focus on Onyx Storm, both in print and the audiobook. I found myself re-reading/re-listening to parts over and over again and still not quite grasping what was going on. I thought it was just me, but based on the internet reaction, I’m far from alone.

Also, why even bother including a map in the book if half the story is going to take place in areas not on the map? The islands aren’t on it, daggumit.

I do think this is the funniest book in the series. It did make me laugh out loud several times, and I don’t remember that happening in the others. Ridoc was in his element throughout this book, plus Violet, Xaden, and Dain had some good lines and moments. The end of chapter 17 stands out, as does Broccoli. (IYKYK).

When it comes to the audiobook, it was enjoyable overall. I’m still not a huge fan of Rebecca Soler as a narrator in general. Her voice kinda gets on my nerves after about an hour of listening. There are two new additions to the voices in this audiobook, which at this point, don’t make sense to me. Those chapters didn’t add too much in my opinion and listening to them took far too long to figure out who we were with. The voices were too similar for the three women. However, Teddy Hamilton slayed again. Keep him. The others… eh.

And now for the end of book thoughts – aka spoiler central if you haven’t read Onyx Storm yet. Again, bookmark and come back.

Going into this, there were a lot of fan theories about Violet getting her memory wiped, aka “New Moon-ed”, and I’m kinda mad that that’s what we ended up getting. It feels like such a cop out. But at least that made the rest of the ending different. The fact that the end is so similar with the ending of Iron Flame was kinda annoying. It’s like, we had this whole dang book and he’s in basically the same position. Buh.

Am I going to keep reading the series? Yes. But my excitement is currently a bit tempered for that book… whenever we get it.