Book Review: On the Winds of Quasars – T.A. Bruno
Review may contain spoilers for book one – In the Orbit of Sirens
26 years after the end of “In the Orbit of Sirens”, Denton and Eliana’s kids are all grown up. There is no more noise of the Siren Nhymn and the world has gotten on in relative peace. The reader starts by following Cade (the son of our characters in book one) and Zepher, two young adults coming back to Kamaria for vacation before Cade starts his new promotion. Denton and Eliana are grateful to have Cade back with them once more and we get a good feel of their unified family dynamic. It is at this point we are also introduced to Cade’s deaf sister Nella also now grown up and working as a botanist.
During his time on vacation, Cade and Zepher go out on the town, looking to test the boundaries of their relationship to see if they could be anything more. During their evening they get on the wrong side of a cranky Auk’Nai and the evening ends with Cade being beaten while trying to escape a delicate situation with Zepher. Turning to his sister Nella, he seeks shelter and healing, but before too long, both are left in the dark. Kidnapped by an unknown entity.
It seems that life on Kamaria, was not as peaceful as they once thought. It is up to Denton and Eliana to save their children from the threats of the outside world. Threats that will change their lives forever.
On the Winds of Quasars felt very similar to book one in execution. The author really lets the reader sit with the character and situations they are in before turning up the heat. This can make for a relatively slow burn over the first sections of the book. During the first third of the story, we follow Denton, Eliana and their kids as they go through life on the planet. We are reintroduced to more family members from book one to give it that nostalgic feeling. If you are a character driven reader who likes slice of life, this aspect is going to work for you here. What this has allowed for is a graceful reintroduction into the world and story without the need for a “the story so far” section at the beginning of the book. Although it may have felt slow, I did appreciate that the story so far was incorporated into the new elements introduced in the second instalment.
The darker, alien elements of this story were also fun to watch unfold. I can’t go too much into detail here for fear of spoilers, but I liked that the situation one of our characters were in got more and more sinister as the story unfolded. What started as a relatively innocent interaction between two people turned into something much more and it was really cool once those pennies dropped. This also allowed the author to incorporate more space exploration and psychological horror elements to the overall book.
I’ll admit, I felt lukewarm on the first 60/70% of the book. It was still enjoyable, and I liked it, but it wasn’t adding anything new to the world or plot IMO. We followed a similar formula, getting to see the lives of the children (now adults), the catalyst event happens and it’s a fight against time. Then … the last 30% happened.
Boy oh boy, did that last 30% happen! One, thing I can say with confidence is that Bruno can absolutely bring the heat in his books! Once I turned the page into the last third of this book, I could not put it down. It was action packed, the foreshadowing of first 70% clicked into place and the stakes went sky high. I was anxious about what was going to happen to our crew, I had no idea who would make it out of this one alive and I was on the edge of my seat. Once again the last sentence of Bruno’s story has me cursing his name (luckily the third book is already out and I can jump right in .. but imagine if I had to wait!).
Overall, I had a good time with the second instalment after initially thinking the first 70% was quite slow. T.A. Bruno, you got me. I am all in for book 3.
