ARC Review--Storm by Alyssa Rose Ivy

Underneath our greatest flaws lie our greatest strengths.

Jared barely has time to process the revelation that his mother is a witch before his life is once again turned upside down. He wakes up in a time and place he thought he had left behind with no clue how to get out.
When Vera shows up the stakes are even higher.

Racing to find a way back to reality and to fix mistakes, both must face new truths about their identities, and what they are made of.

I received this ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review, I was in no way compensated for this review.

Storm is the final book in Alyssa Rose Ivy’s Empire Chronicles series, and it was one I quite enjoyed! Jared was a character that took some getting used to, but pretty much after Allie and Levi got together, he started to grow on me. So I guess it wasn’t long before I started rooting for him when this spinoff series started. Though, it wasn’t to be with Casey, as we saw in the first book, it was just to find his own happiness, and that he does.

When Storm starts, Jared finds himself waking up in his old room, his very, very old room that was in the apartment he shared with Levi and Owen. Jared has somehow gone back in time to before Levi and Allie met. There does get a little bit of complexities when it comes to the “time-traveling” notion, as the past he’s in, is only a possible version of the past…it does get explained better than I can put into words, but basically as long as Jared can get himself out of this past and back to his own present, whatever mistakes he make here won’t effect his future.

It’s not long before Vera joins him, when she tries to wake Jared with a kiss, he somehow pulls her into this past world. For in their own time, Jared and Vera appear to be deeply asleep.

Jared and Vera have a lot on their plate with trying to get back to their own time, but Jared is also trying to figure out a way to rescue his mom. Then there’s Tiffany to deal with, who’s also in this version of the past and trying to muck things up. Such as preventing Allie and Levi from ever meeting, though if Jared doesn’t find a way to get back to the present and destroy this version of the past, it will lead into an unknown future. So there’s definitely a lot of tension going on in this one as Vera and Jared race to figure out how to go about doing things. And can I just still say, how blown away I am that Tiffany turned out to be an evil b…witch?! Lol. I had really liked her character initially, but then she had to turn out to be an evil witch in disguise.

It was kind of fun in a way, because we get to see how all the characters were from wayyy back in the beginning of Flight. Toby is back to being a persistent ass in trying to get Allie back, Levi has his haughty attitude back in full…and yet Jared is still his newly matured and grown self. It makes for interesting developments for sure. Owen, sadly, just seemed not to really be present. I mean he’s there, but it’s possible he was dealing with the aftermath of leaving Daisy. He was just very melancholy.

I have very much enjoyed watching Jared mature. He’s no longer that playboy from when we first met him. A lot has changed him. I love seeing him with Vera because those two are pretty much perfect for one another. Their chemistry is definitely swoon worthy on the pages.

While I had initially heard that this was the last book in the Empire Chronicles portion of the Chronicles world series at large, there is a bit of a cliffhanger. Or more like fodder for another story, one that would have to involve Jared somehow, and then Vera by proxy. But I have yet to hear of any details yet. It’s also possible that issue might pop up in Daisy and Owen’s story since it’s of the same world. Only time will tell I guess, unless I go bug Alyssa about it! ;)

Overall Rating 4.5/5 stars