What do you think?
Catalyst Moon #3
Storm
The mage Kali has uncovered the secret of the thralls: the unseen foes possessing the Aredian people. But Kali must pay a high price for this discovery – her own humanity. Her sentinel lover, Stonewall, is desperate to flee Whitewater City with Kali, but his commanding officer has other plans for him. Meanwhile, a grieving Eris plans to free the final few mages trapped in the Whitewater City bastion, but first she must gather her allies and fortify her spirit to face the coming storm.
Catalyst Moon: Storm is the third book in an epic fantasy series with notes of romance that introduces an old world where magic is new and rebellion draws ever closer.
The Catalyst Moon Saga:
Book One - Incursion
Book Two - Breach
Book Three - Storm
Book Four - Surrender (Coming 2020!)
Catalyst Moon: Storm is the third book in an epic fantasy series with notes of romance that introduces an old world where magic is new and rebellion draws ever closer.
The Catalyst Moon Saga:
Book One - Incursion
Book Two - Breach
Book Three - Storm
Book Four - Surrender (Coming 2020!)
500 pages, Paperback
Published March 1, 2019
About the author
Lauren L. Garcia
10 books128 followersLauren finds Real Life overrated, and has always preferred to inhabit alternate realities, both self-created and created by others. However, after being burned by certain fandoms one too many times, Lauren decided to focus her reality escape attempts on her own creations. She's much happier now, although she still enjoys fandoms - in small doses.
A believer in love, hope, compassion, and similar squishy ideals, Lauren endeavors to create stories that both gut-punch and elevate her readers. Emotional rollercoasters are what make fiction fun, after all.
When she's not avoiding Real Life responsibilities, Lauren enjoys dancing at music festivals, spending time in nature, and tending to her cat's every whim. She lives in North Florida with her partner and assorted furred critters, but can be found online at laloga.com
A believer in love, hope, compassion, and similar squishy ideals, Lauren endeavors to create stories that both gut-punch and elevate her readers. Emotional rollercoasters are what make fiction fun, after all.
When she's not avoiding Real Life responsibilities, Lauren enjoys dancing at music festivals, spending time in nature, and tending to her cat's every whim. She lives in North Florida with her partner and assorted furred critters, but can be found online at laloga.com
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 30, 2023
This book was even more exciting than the first two, with betrayals and demons and fights and experiments with magic and a truly breathtaking climactic escape attempt. I love the relationship between Kali and Stonewall; it's so sweet and natural even as they're feeling their way through their differences and the enormous socially-imposed restrictions on them.
If you enjoy epic fantasy with lots of magic and a forbidden romance, I highly recommend the Catalyst Storm series.
If you enjoy epic fantasy with lots of magic and a forbidden romance, I highly recommend the Catalyst Storm series.
September 4, 2019
Loved it! Just like the previous books-- a blend of action and character relationships. Besides Stonewall and Kali, my favorite interactions are between siblings Milo and Flint.
June 6, 2023
Storm is the third book of the Catalyst Moon series. I first discovered this series when I was asked to read and review the first book of the series, Incursion. I liked the romance between Kali and Stonewall and was intrigued by the concept of hematite being used to block, or at least dampen the effects of, magic. The idea of hematite being used as sort of a drug to protect the sentinels from the mages they guarded was especially fascinating.
In the second book, Breach, a group of mages, not including Kali but headed by her friend Eris Echina, who can shift into the shape of a bird, and Eris’ husband, Gideon escaped from the Whitewater Bastion where all the local mages are imprisoned. Gideon was killed in the escape but the remaining mages got away and are now on the run.
Meanwhile, Stonewall’s squad took Kali and another mage, Sadira, to a nearby town to cure the citizens of some sort of plague. This is the primary job of mages in Aredia, curing the sick. When they had finished curing the people, the cured citizens turned into the creatures they call ‘thralls’ and attacked them. It became necessary to kill all of them they could find. I’m not sure I understand this part. But Kali somehow got the idea that, given enough time, she might be able to cure thralls.
Anyway, in Storm Kali, Stonewall, and the others return to much hostility at Whitewater. The sentinel commander, Talon, is furious at everybody over the escape, and all the other sentinels are in a bad mood too. It doesn’t help that their hematite shipments have been being stolen for months and they are running out. Commander Talon is having all the mages locked into hematite collars to keep them from doing anything.
It appears that the hematite the sentinels take to keep up their powers has to be processed specially for that purpose, because one of the older, more addicted sentinels tries to dig some out of their armor to eat, and dies horribly. (I had wondered about that – how they were able to eat hematite, which is a kind of iron ore.)
Conditions deteriorate rapidly in the bastion. A lot of the sentinels die of hematite withdrawal, and Talon treats everyone who is left roughly.
It seems Kali may have been mistaken about possibly being able to cure thralls. She is haunted by voices calling for ‘sweet blood’ and ‘sweet magic’ and craves the magic of the other mages. She begins to wonder if she is possessed by one of the Fata – ancient, supposedly mythical beings, who she begins to suspect are the cause of thralls.
I think a lot of the problems with the mages in Aredia result from faulty beliefs on the part of a lot of people. The common people believe that the mages are evil and somehow have it in for them – which may be leading up to becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy as they display much hostility to people who mostly wouldn’t otherwise have any ill feelings toward them. Now, for some reason, the people have taken it into their heads that the sentinels are responsible for the mages, as in, they are why there are mages when the truth is the sentinels are supposed to be keeping the mages from hurting people. And vice versa. Many of the sentinels also appear to think the mages are evil, though, and some of them are highly abusive of the mages.
In the end, most of the remaining mages also walk out of the bastion just as High Commander Argent shows up to take charge.
But there are a lot of loose ends hanging here. Lots of things are left to be explained in the later books. The business about the Fata seems to be meant to explain some about how magic came to Aredia at the time when the second moon appeared (the Catalyst Moon of the series title). But there is a lot more to that story.
And what is the bigger picture here?
In the second book, Breach, a group of mages, not including Kali but headed by her friend Eris Echina, who can shift into the shape of a bird, and Eris’ husband, Gideon escaped from the Whitewater Bastion where all the local mages are imprisoned. Gideon was killed in the escape but the remaining mages got away and are now on the run.
Meanwhile, Stonewall’s squad took Kali and another mage, Sadira, to a nearby town to cure the citizens of some sort of plague. This is the primary job of mages in Aredia, curing the sick. When they had finished curing the people, the cured citizens turned into the creatures they call ‘thralls’ and attacked them. It became necessary to kill all of them they could find. I’m not sure I understand this part. But Kali somehow got the idea that, given enough time, she might be able to cure thralls.
Anyway, in Storm Kali, Stonewall, and the others return to much hostility at Whitewater. The sentinel commander, Talon, is furious at everybody over the escape, and all the other sentinels are in a bad mood too. It doesn’t help that their hematite shipments have been being stolen for months and they are running out. Commander Talon is having all the mages locked into hematite collars to keep them from doing anything.
It appears that the hematite the sentinels take to keep up their powers has to be processed specially for that purpose, because one of the older, more addicted sentinels tries to dig some out of their armor to eat, and dies horribly. (I had wondered about that – how they were able to eat hematite, which is a kind of iron ore.)
Conditions deteriorate rapidly in the bastion. A lot of the sentinels die of hematite withdrawal, and Talon treats everyone who is left roughly.
It seems Kali may have been mistaken about possibly being able to cure thralls. She is haunted by voices calling for ‘sweet blood’ and ‘sweet magic’ and craves the magic of the other mages. She begins to wonder if she is possessed by one of the Fata – ancient, supposedly mythical beings, who she begins to suspect are the cause of thralls.
I think a lot of the problems with the mages in Aredia result from faulty beliefs on the part of a lot of people. The common people believe that the mages are evil and somehow have it in for them – which may be leading up to becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy as they display much hostility to people who mostly wouldn’t otherwise have any ill feelings toward them. Now, for some reason, the people have taken it into their heads that the sentinels are responsible for the mages, as in, they are why there are mages when the truth is the sentinels are supposed to be keeping the mages from hurting people. And vice versa. Many of the sentinels also appear to think the mages are evil, though, and some of them are highly abusive of the mages.
In the end, most of the remaining mages also walk out of the bastion just as High Commander Argent shows up to take charge.
But there are a lot of loose ends hanging here. Lots of things are left to be explained in the later books. The business about the Fata seems to be meant to explain some about how magic came to Aredia at the time when the second moon appeared (the Catalyst Moon of the series title). But there is a lot more to that story.
And what is the bigger picture here?
July 5, 2019
"Above all other things, this is a story about love."
I love that sentence. The author reminds us of this at the start of every book and I think it is one of the most perfect summaries I have ever come across. Because not only is this story about the building romance and love between the two main characters, Kali and Stonewall. This is a story - a series - about the ties of love between people and what that love can make us do, endure, suffer, sacrifice and the joys and pains it lets us experience. And even, how love can be changed into hate.
This is one of the things that I love about the entire series, and which so very clearly comes across in the third book: love motivates us. Whether it's the love of a parent and child, between siblings, towards a country or duty or gods, or towards a partner in life, it's love that ultimately guides our decisions. This comes across wonderfully in the tragedy of Talon and Folley, through Eris' grief and Drake's courage in facing his worst fears - even if he'll never admit how much of a good man he is.
These characters breathe love, and as a result, life and all the terrible, wonderful entanglements that come with it.
Aside from characters that make me want to cheer, weep and strangle them in turn, this book has taken me on a tense, action-packed ride that culminated in a near heart-attack. I don't want to spoil too much, but let's just say our heroes have found a way to exit the city in a manner that would make Evel Knievel think twice.
If you want a book that has it all - humor, romance, action, world-building and three-dimensional characters that will capture your love and attention - I can only recommend Storm and the rest of the Catalyst Moon series.
I love that sentence. The author reminds us of this at the start of every book and I think it is one of the most perfect summaries I have ever come across. Because not only is this story about the building romance and love between the two main characters, Kali and Stonewall. This is a story - a series - about the ties of love between people and what that love can make us do, endure, suffer, sacrifice and the joys and pains it lets us experience. And even, how love can be changed into hate.
This is one of the things that I love about the entire series, and which so very clearly comes across in the third book: love motivates us. Whether it's the love of a parent and child, between siblings, towards a country or duty or gods, or towards a partner in life, it's love that ultimately guides our decisions. This comes across wonderfully in the tragedy of Talon and Folley, through Eris' grief and Drake's courage in facing his worst fears - even if he'll never admit how much of a good man he is.
These characters breathe love, and as a result, life and all the terrible, wonderful entanglements that come with it.
Aside from characters that make me want to cheer, weep and strangle them in turn, this book has taken me on a tense, action-packed ride that culminated in a near heart-attack. I don't want to spoil too much, but let's just say our heroes have found a way to exit the city in a manner that would make Evel Knievel think twice.
If you want a book that has it all - humor, romance, action, world-building and three-dimensional characters that will capture your love and attention - I can only recommend Storm and the rest of the Catalyst Moon series.
December 15, 2022
I liked the first 2 books in this series, but this one fell flat. Book 1 had a forbidden romance. Book 2 had a daring escape. What does this book have? The romance is kind of stagnant. The escaped mages just kind of come back? To try to get one more mage out? (Doesn’t really make sense) I feel like the plot would have had more urgency if we saw them fleeing through the wilds or something, a survival story, dealing with thralls (essentially zombie monsters in this series) but no they just make their way back to the bastion and struggle to make a plan for another round of escape. Ho hum.
The human drama of the guards running out of hematite was kind of interesting but DANG a lot of people died with little fanfare. And our main characters didn’t really seem traumatized by this? They were just kinda like “oh glad WE got some hematite in time, sucks for you guys.”
We got a lot of clues about the origin of the magic system and some kind of conspiracy behind the scenes but boy did I NOT care about any of that. It was just too drawn out and vague. Basically this book has middle book syndrome- we know enough to just be really confused and annoyed.
I don’t really have interest in continuing the series because I worry it will be more of the same kinds of problems with the writing. Granted our surviving characters are in very different circumstances by the end of the book so this running-in-circles around the bastion seems to be done with. Maybe some day I will check out book 4.
The human drama of the guards running out of hematite was kind of interesting but DANG a lot of people died with little fanfare. And our main characters didn’t really seem traumatized by this? They were just kinda like “oh glad WE got some hematite in time, sucks for you guys.”
We got a lot of clues about the origin of the magic system and some kind of conspiracy behind the scenes but boy did I NOT care about any of that. It was just too drawn out and vague. Basically this book has middle book syndrome- we know enough to just be really confused and annoyed.
I don’t really have interest in continuing the series because I worry it will be more of the same kinds of problems with the writing. Granted our surviving characters are in very different circumstances by the end of the book so this running-in-circles around the bastion seems to be done with. Maybe some day I will check out book 4.
April 8, 2019
I’m really enjoying this series and looking forward to the next installment! A great combination of magic, mystery, action, loyalty, and romance. There are still so many missing pieces to the history of these characters and their magic and I’m anxious to find out more!! I also appreciate all the character point of views and experiencing the action from many different angles (which is done well and not at all confusing). I don’t like to recommend book series until they’re finished, but this is quality story telling that deserves recognition!! And I selfishly have to know how it all works out, so you all better read along too!!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews