It certainly helps guide a reader to which things you should be looking for, and the sections centering on her heroine make sure to hit the point just be extra sure. She doesn’t seem to have any magical abilities when she really should have them.īut she uses three names throughout the book - Rora is the third - and Carmack uses them interchangeably to help denote which aspects of this central character we’re seeing at any given time. (In fact, one has to suspect that the cover artist had Daenerys Targaryen in mind when designing it.) She’s tall.

By virtue of being a princess, Aurora’s special. He and Aurora’s romance is pretty standard, but when something’s familiar, the execution matters. Fortunately, the execution is good.Īnd now to the topic of the special heroine. Heading into Locke’s head, however, makes it seem as though he has feelings almost too quickly. Carmack doesn’t shy away from making her have fluttering feelings for the prince, but we get to see things happen from both perspectives - which again helps move back from that line of stereotypes. By virtue of where the plot goes, Aurora doesn’t have to waffle. Let’s tackle the topic of the love triangle. Even Cassius, who is not the greatest guy ever, has his own interesting points. That helps Carmack build the world up, exposing different aspects through each of her characters. Novaya, the princess’ childhood friend and a servant in the castle, has her time to shine, and there’s a fourth perspective as well. She takes us into the heads of Prince Cassius as well as Locke, the two aforementioned men. Aurora, renaming herself “Roar”, heads out beyond her palace and finds a lot more than she bargained for.īut Carmack does not restrict our experience of Caelira to just Aurora/Roar, to the benefit of the book. But he’s not the only handsome man around who has stormhearts. Their stormhearts (also the name of the greater series) provide power for those who dare to take them. It means quite a bit when storms can take the form of fire, or fog, or wind, or skyfire (lightning). Here’s a rough summary: Our heroine, Aurora, is the princess of a city-state arranged to marry a prince who has serious magical power to his name. It’s not much of a spoiler to say that “dances” is the correct term when both appear on the front flap of the book’s dust jacket.

Roar dances perilously close to two stereotypical plot devices in young adult fiction: the love triangle, and the special heroine. By Cheryl Wassenaar 5 years ago Cora Carmack’s Roar might get its title from an inadvertent self-naming, but its main character does end up earning the name.

Cora carmack roar a stormheart novel