The Stormbringer

October 12, 2020
Cooper (Highland Dragon) launches an exciting fantasy romance duology with this epic adventure. When Sentinel Darya stumbles on the sleeping body of Amris var Faina, a legendary general who fought a war against the Traitor God 100 years ago, and awakens him from his slumber, she discovers that the Traitor God is plotting his return, as his servant, the dark wizard Thyran, gathers strength once more. Darya catches Amris up on the events of the last century as they gather other Sentinels and wizards to join the fight that’s sure to come, but their relationship is complicated by the spirit of Amris’s former lover, the wizard Gerant, now embedded in Darya’s soul-sword as a weapon. Cooper’s worldbuilding impresses as her characters prepare for the dreaded clash with the Traitor God, laying the groundwork for another stimulating adventure to come. Though the love story takes a backseat to the action, the characters are well-drawn and easy to root for. The well-crafted magical world and dash of romance are sure to win over readers.

October 15, 2020
A woman frees a powerful warrior from a century of stasis and they band together to fight Thyran, a fearsome god set on vengeance. Darya is a sentinel, a special class of warrior charged with fighting the monsters that ravage her homeland. Sentinels are gifted with magically charged talents and weapons; for example, Darya is impervious to poison and can elude any human-made trap. Sentinels also carry soulswords, weapons that have been mystically infused with the souls of people who chose to serve the gods even after their deaths. Her soulsword is inhabited by Gerant, a powerful wizard who has been an adviser, guide, and friend in their decade of service together. When Darya finds Gen. Amris in the stasis spell, Gerant immediately knows how to undo the spell because he was the one who created it. A century ago, he and Amris were lovers, and Gerant created it for Amris to use as a last-resort protection. Amris quickly rebounds from stasis and agrees to help Darya and Gerant strategize for the coming battle with Thyran. At first, Darya is an unlikely conduit between the two former lovers, but eventually Gerant finds a way for all three of them to bond together to fight Thyran and his armies of undead. They travel back to Darya's home base to gather other fighters and prepare for war. Darya and Amris are physically drawn to each other, but they each worry they will be betraying Gerant, who is a presence in their lives even though he is no longer human. Although Cooper might have intended for this unusual love triangle to be symbolic of the human desire to gain approval from those who have passed on, it makes for a profoundly weird romance. The first in a serviceable new fantasy series might disappoint those looking for a stronger romantic arc.

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November 1, 2020
Adventure awaits readers as Cooper (Highland Dragon Master, 2018) starts a new series. Darya is a Sentinel, a person blessed by the gods with unique powers and molded into a fighter through magic. She and her sword, Garant, keep the evil that emerged one hundred years ago at bay by slaying monsters, demons, and other evil entities. When her sword, which holds the soul of a long-dead wizard, realizes that his former lover is frozen in time in the ruins of a city, Darya works to unfreeze him. Amris remembered fighting Thyran, a minion of the Traitor God, and nothing more. When Darya brings him back to consciousness a century later, he joins her in her quest to find Thyran and stop the rampage he will surely bring to the land. Darya and Amris' slow-burn romance is further complicated by their connection to Garant, creating the most tangled love triangle yet in the swords-and-sorcery genre. Fans of The Witcher TV series will enjoy Cooper's take on the monster-hunter hero to be a fun, romantic twist.

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