This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend. Read the full disclosure here.
Book: “This Shattered Tempest” by Thea Guanzon
Publishing Info: Harper Voyager, October 2026
Where Did I Get this Book: Netgalley
Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound
Book Description: Throughout their political marriage, Alaric and Talasyn struggled to resist the undeniable pull between them, even as rising tensions forced them on opposite sides of a looming war. Hand in hand, they vanquished the cataclysmic threat of the Moonless Dark—and started to hope for a future together.
That hope is shattered when a devastating attack sets off a chain of events that tears them apart once more. Now, as two rival nations prepare for a final, decisive clash, the Master of the Shadowforged Legion and the last Lightweaver fight to find their way back to each other. But the odds are stacked against them, and time is running out…
Is love enough to rewrite destiny? Can a new beginning rise from the ruins of the past? Or are Alaric and Talasyn doomed to meet as enemies on one last battlefield? This explosive third and final book brings the beloved Hurricane Wars series to a stunning conclusion—where passion and power collide, and the fate of a divided world hangs in the balance.
Previously Reviewed: “The Hurricane Wars” and “A Monsoon Rising”
Review: My review of this one could probably be summed up with one big, drawn-out sigh. I remember distinctly writing about two things in my review of the second book. One, that I was concerned that this didn’t need to be a trilogy, based on the pacing of the plot and its conflicts. And two, that I hoped the miscommunication/deception/general angst of the romance would finally cease in the third book. Well, unfortunately, both of those concerns feel well-founded, and, in hindsight, I think the fact that this was originally a fanfiction story shows more than it should in a traditionally published series.
It’s tough, because there are still things that in a vacuum I enjoyed about this book. But because it was wrapping up the trilogy and was retroactively lowering my opinion of the entire series as a whole, it was difficult to step back and try to evaluate this one on its own merits. I will say that I think this author’s writing is still incredibly strong. For all that I’m going to rant about fanfiction later, there are incredibly talented authors who write fanfiction, and many of them, like this author, deserve to make the leap to traditional publishing. When Guanzon publishes another book, I will definitely be first in line to read it. Her world-building is creative, her characters are complex and interesting, her dialogue is distinctly non-cringy (something I shouldn’t have to say, but unfortunately really does stand out when you finally see good dialogue on the page in romantasy novels), and while I think the romance here was too drawn out, she does write romantic tension well.
But yeah, this book and its place as the cap of the trilogy just didn’t work for me. It started off well enough, picking up immediately after the cliffhanger at the end of the second book. I had high hopes that would help the pacing along, but unfortunately, no. This entire situation was wrapped up so comedically fast and easily that I ran into the exact same question I had in the second book: was any of this really necessary? Instead of feeling like an actual plot point, it instead felt like only a small speed bump inserted to break up the romantic angst.
And, unfortunately, right after this is all wrapped up, we immediately dive right back into the same angst that we’ve been reading about for two books already. I like a slow burn as much as the next person, but this is an example of an author refusing to allow her characters to travel an actual romantic arc. They simply quickly climbed the first half of yearning, got to the angst, and have now hung out here for hundreds upon hundreds of pages.
And at a certain point, it doesn’t matter how strong an author is at writing romantic tension, it’s going to get pretty dull spending your time in the heads of two people who continue to travel the same tired ground of drama over and over in their own minds. It’s incredibly frustrating to read, and I was increasingly annoyed at both of these characters. We’re well past the “enemies” stage, so instead the author threw in tons of miscommunication, misunderstanding, and a truly baffling amount of time spent on each character internally bemoaning the secrets they were keeping from each other. It was honestly awful, and I wish that some editor had taken the author gently by the hand and said, “It’s ok to move on to the ‘lovers’ stage now, honey. Let it go…”
This romantic “tension” took up so much of the third book that the greater conflict largely fell to the side. At the end of the second book, Talasyn loses her magic. This is a pretty big deal. But she doesn’t even really bother with trying to get it back until nearly halfway through the book because instead so much energy must be focused on the romantic travails.
And this gets to the fanfiction roots of it all. Fanfiction, especially long-form fanfiction of the sort that this came from, is often a relationship-focused medium. Likewise, the longer fics out there are truly behemoths, going on for thousands of pages. And this was one of those, originally. But what works for fanfiction, a medium that releases periodically and is consumed in a very different manner than traditional books, doesn’t necessarily translate straight over to traditional publishing. This entire trilogy needed editing. I’m now fully convinced that with a firm editor at the helm, this could have been trimmed down to a duology and would have been a million times better for it. Every aspect would have been strengthened, from the actual plot and conflict to the progression of the romance. Needless side plots could have been removed, since it’s clear they were mostly there to break up the romantic drama. And that same romantic drama could have been pared down to a tight, satisfying romantic arc, instead of leaving readers stranded on a frustrating angst plateau for almost two entire books.
So it’s tough to know who to recommend this one to. Because, like I said, the writing was still strong, and some of the romantic beats were truly good. But the pacing and the romantic drama were all too much for me. If you don’t mind miscommunication/misunderstanding tropes and really enjoy angst, I’d say you’re much more likely to enjoy this book and this trilogy as a whole.
Rating 6: While I can still see the potential of this author, this book was a frustrating conclusion to a trilogy that started off so well.
Reader’s Advisory:
“This Shattered Tempest” can be found on these Goodreads lists: October 2026 Most Anticipated Romance Releases and End of Series in 2026.
