Death Wind

Elven Alliance, Book 3

By: Tara Grayce

Narrated by: Liz Brand

Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's Summary

Essie should be planning her happily ever after, not planning a war.

Although they once were enemies, the humans of Escarland and the elves of Tarenhiel have allied to fight the trolls from the far north. But alliances are tricky things even in the best of times, and with Farrendel - the elves’ foremost warrior and Essie’s husband - captured by the trolls, the circumstances appear dire indeed.

But Essie won’t give up, and she will make her two peoples work together to fight this war if it’s the last thing she does. One way or another, she will get Farrendel back, no matter what it takes.

©2020 Tara Grayce (P)2021 Tara Grayce

A great continuation of the story

I really enjoy the easy affection that these characters have for each other. It's a great fantasy romance that has affection and love without the illicit sex. Actually, book 1-3 are all clean. I will be getting book 4 as well to see where the characters of this are going to end up.

This is a character driven story. There is plenty of internal monologs and characters figuring out family relationships to the backdrop of 3 kingdoms pushing past generations of prejudice, mistrust, war, and cultural misunderstandings.

It's an easy story to fall into and the plot and action keeps you interested. The narrator does a great job even with the male characters. I will be keeping this book. Credit worthy.

Sooo Good! Looking Forward to Book 4!!

Parents: PG13, very clean but geared towards the middle grade & young adult reader - adults will love it too
Language: none
Violence: moderate gore, torture scenes, war and fighting
Sexual content: kissing, desires for more but very sweet and no details are ever given

Essie now has to get the elves and her people to work together to rescue Farrendel... not a small task, especially while she's worrying about his torture and if he'll survive it this time. This book bounces between their perspectives and a few other characters as well and although it has a darker feel to it and does move a bit slower in places it's still just as hard to put down as the first two books. I absolutely love this series and can't wait to see what happens next.

The narrator does a fantastic job with Essie along with the other character's voices and her acting skills are great. She's really easy to listen to and one of the few narrators that I don't find the need to up the playback speed on.

Fantastic!

Book 3 was an awesome culmination of the first 2 books. I am looking forward to the 4th book.

Great addition to a great series!

I really came to love the characters as this series progressed, though the writing does at times become a bit too repetitive or drawn out.

Having said that, I love the bond built between the elves and humans during this book! Getting to like the elf sister was hard for me considering what happens, but eventually I got over it.

Now, not so much a story review, but... did anyone else feel like the title sounded like a bad fart? 🤣🤣🤣 I don’t know why, but it made me laugh. Like I just don’t get why, even after reading this dang book, she felt the need to name it “Death Wind.” I get that Farendel’s warrior name means death on the wind but “death wind” just cracked me up.

Overall, I would recommend the read! And the narrator is awesome! I love all her voices and I give her props for managing a British, cockney, and American accent flawlessly.

Adore this series!

So good!!

I adore this series, guys.

And I may even adore the audiobooks even more.

The narrator does a wonderful job with her narration speed and her expression; I normally have to speed up my audiobooks but don't feel the need to do that with these.

I also love her portrayals of the characters; her portrayals match the depiction of them that I have in my head, making the transition from reading the series to listening to it completely seamless. The only difference is that I tend to forget that the different characters have accents, so when I started listening to the audiobooks at first it caught me off guard.

I definitely want to collect this entire series on audio; I find listening to them to be so soothing and relaxing, something that I definitely need in my life.

Now, on to the plot.

Despite the separation of Essie and Farrendel in this book, I loved it just as much as all the other installments. We get to see many different relationships grow, specifically that of Weylind's relationship to Essie's brothers. Despite the deeper undertones and the characters' concern for Farrendel, their interactions and the growth of their relationships is heartwarming.

Frankly, in the last book, I couldn't comprehend having any sympathy for Melantha, or caring about her as a character. Well, this book proved me wrong. After a few chapters I found her growing on me, which makes the next book all the better!

The ending! There is so much I love about the end of this book! The Farrendel/Essie interactions are painful yet comforting and sweet, and I was extremely invested in the plot with Melantha (I will not spoil) which thankfully we saw more of in the next book.

Though this is a bit different than the other books in this series, I love it just as much!

I love this one!

I loved the 3rd book the most. so much action, great story, a few nontypical scenes, and as always the main characters are great. The other characters are also well developed and its hard not to like them all!

very slow

Not quite what I was hoping for. it was a lot of talk about nothing important and not very many exciting scenes.

Excellent book

I have absolutely loved this series. The characters are well-formed. Indeed, they now feel like friends! The story is well-plotted, beautifully written and expertly read.

I cannot wait for a return to this world. I am really hoping Ms Grayce writes more books in the series.

Totally enjoyable and a lovely escape from reality

Thumbs up on this series

This series is entertaining with characters easy to love and some to hate, 😊. It’s more of an truly young adult level because the romances are sweet and clean, but endearing enough for older readers. There is something special about the relationship between Essie and Farendel that is tender and quite touching. The story lines aren’t too terribly complicated but move along steadily.

Horrible book

First two books were awesome, this book absolute trash! One of the worst endings I have ever heard!!

Wow, what a ride!

After the cliffhanger in which the last book ended, I was so thankful to have this next one already ready to listen :) Having Farrendel and Essie separated from the start definitely added to the conflict (I was cheering all the way for when they'd be able to get back to each other), while it also allowed me to look forward to each other's POV in order to know how things were going (either with war preparations and stuff with Essie or survival with Farrendel). I also found myself enjoying and looking forward to Melantha's POV since it definitely added so much to the story (background for her motives, dealing with the trolls, past experiences as princess of the elves) while showing how things were going with Farrendel's captivity. I loved the arc growth with all three of these characters, and what each of them brought to this installment. My only "complaint" would be with a certain phrase that seemed to be overused in one of the chapters in the first half of the book (how they couldn't believe it had only been "two weeks" or "three months since X happened"), but since it didn't reappear later, it didn't throw me off. I also appreciate how realistic and serious the experience was with Farrendel's captivity and everything related to it. I think the author truly did it justice, and I'm sure she'll continue to do so in the next installment. Well done!

I've heard from other reviewers that they felt the first half of the book was slow (or even dragged), but honestly, whether it was from me pacing my reading, my investment in this series, or thanks to the narrator (I think this was it), that wasn't the case for me. She was fabulous as always, especially with adding trolls' voices to the already kinda complicated mix of elves and humans. I still found myself having trouble keeping the names of the brothers straight (the Kings—Weylind and Averett—as well as Edmund and Julian), but she clearly differentiated them in her portrayal. Her acting skills were also great when delivering the nuances (from whispers to pain-filled straining voices, to worry and everything in between, she pulled all of them off).

Overall, a great continuation to one of my favorite series (as much in the story as well as performance), and I seriously can't wait for the next installment! ~ 4.75 stars

To the rescue...

I seriously love the humour in this series, this book has it all. The aftermath of betrayal, a reconciliation and all the consequences of a war. It also has more about the trolls, which was really good. And most importantly the bond between Essie and Farrendel is explored more, the hilarious banter between Essie's and Farrendel's family is my favourite thing. The story itself was done so well that I did not want to ever finish the book, it has been a very entertaining and emotional adventure. This is definitely a series to pick up.