THE STORMBRINGER

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.