Title: Earth’s End
Series: Air Awakens #3
Author: Elise Kova
Publisher: Silver Wing Press
Publication Date: February 11, 2016
Genre: Young Adult – Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 348
Format: Purchased eBook for Kindle

A woman awoken in air, a soldier forged by fire, a weapon risen from blood.

Vhalla Yarl has made it to the warfront in the North. Forged by blood and fire, she has steeled her heart for the final battle of the Solaris Empire’s conquest. The choices before Vhalla are no longer servitude or freedom, they are servitude or death. The stakes have never been higher as the Emperor maintains his iron grip on her fate, holding everything Vhalla still has left to lose in the balance.

This sequel was unexpected in its intensity, especially toward the end, and it shows just how far Vhalla has come as not only a sorceress, but as a woman: brave, strong, and unrelenting.

As this is a sequel, there may be spoilers.

This book destroyed me. My emotions felt like they were just on a roller coaster that wouldn’t stick on a straight path most of the way through. Oh man.

As far as the plot went, I really enjoy how it keeps advancing to a common goal and a main purpose of Vhalla having to fight for the crown and to hopefully win her freedom. Throughout the events that happen in this book, that never changed, but it was always met with one challenging opposition or another. I’m rooting for Aldrik and Vhalla, and to see their love grow and blossom, only to be torn down, hurts. Challenge after challenge got in their way, and even though they both fought for each other in their own ways to strive toward an end together, things became so rocky in the end that I could feel my heart pounding as I read it all unfolding before me.

I found that there were secrets and many twists and turns in this novel. Vhalla is becoming a much stronger individual even in the face of death surrounding her. She doesn’t give up and she strives to protect the prince she loves. I think that although that is her primary driving force, she does so with so much passion that it’s hard not to root for her and to hopefully see her through to the end. She’s much more bold in the presence of the Emperor (whom I wouldn’t mind seeing NOT in a place of power, thanks), never backing down and asserting her intelligence among people who would otherwise belittle her.

I thought that Vhalla was a force to be reckoned with in this book as we saw her use her magic many, many times than in the previous two books, and how far her training has brought her. She’s unafraid to hurt and kill if the need be, which is extremely useful in a solider. I loved being able to see her use her strength and power to her advantage because it really shows how far she’s grown from a meek library apprentice, to a stubborn, strong headed, Windwalker.

Aldrik was also someone that I worried about at the beginning, but once he recovered from injuries at the beginning, I was glad to see his protective and loving nature over Vhalla come back right away. At times I thought he was too overprotective, much in the same way he was in the previous books, but I saw that his love came from somewhere deep inside of him and he wanted to express that. We also got to see more of his epic fire wielding skills as he fought alongside Vhalla and WOW, those two are incredible together. I thought that mentioning how they fight stronger and better together was an important aspect of the book, for sure, because they bounced off of each other so naturally.

As for some of the other characters and side things going on, I thought that Daniel was a good constant companion, though I could see something brewing between them momentarily, Vhalla seemed to quickly shut it down. Elecia and Fritz are in this as much as I would have wanted, but still seeing their presence there, and the interactions they have with Vhalla, really comforted me that friendships weren’t just cast to the side in way of the romance.

Speaking of the romance, OH MAN. Things got hot and heavy up in here and I was just like, “YES. FINALLY.” Yup, no shame.

But let me just say: that ending, man. I am a ball of angry emotions because WHY CAN’T THEY CATCH A BREAK. WHY. I mean, I knew the Emperor would find some way to twist and turn everything around and make things miserable for them, but ARGH. I’m so mad. I mean, that’s not an entirely bad thing, but wow, so many emotions. I need the fourth book now, thanks.

There were a few problems I did have with the novel, though, and they mainly had to do with the formatting of the book. I don’t know what happened, but on the Kindle it read weirdly and didn’t separate paragraphs at times or separated them in chunks. It was strange and distracted from reading because I oftentimes didn’t know who was speaking when sentences would run into each other in the same paragraph.

Also, there were a lot of typos that I noticed, too, as with the other books. That became distracting, too, but I easily chugged forward.

Other than that, I really enjoyed this sequel. It was heart pounding, action based, very romantic, and a whirlwind of emotions (see what I did there?). I’m definitely excited for the next book and I can’t wait to read it.

Overall, I thought this was a solid sequel and I highly recommend it to anyone who’s read the first two novels.

I rate this book 4.5/5 stars.