Daughters of the Storm

by Kim Wilkins

Overview

Five very different sisters team up against their stepbrother to save their kingdom in this Norse-flavored fantasy epic—the start of a new series in the tradition of Naomi Novik, Peter V. Brett, and Robin Hobb.

FIVE ROYAL SISTERS. ONE CROWN. 

They are the daughters of a king. Though they share the same royal blood, they could not be more different. Bluebell is a proud warrior, stronger than any man and with an ironclad heart to match. Rose’s heart is all too passionate: She is the queen of a neighboring kingdom who is risking everything for a forbidden love. Ash is discovering a dangerous talent for magic that might be a gift—or a curse. And then there are the twins—vain Ivy, who lives for admiration, and zealous Willow, who lives for the gods.

But when their father is stricken by a mysterious ailment, these five sisters must embark on a desperate journey to save him and prevent their treacherous stepbrother from seizing the throne. Their mission: find the powerful witch who can cure the king. But to succeed on their quest, they must overcome their differences and hope that the secrets they hide from one another and the world are never brought to light. Because if this royal family breaks, it could destroy the kingdom.

The saga continues in . . .
SISTERS OF THE FIRE

Praise for Daughters of the Storm

“[Daughters of the Storm] is a twisty high fantasy . . . exploring political machinations and the relationships between sisters; betrayal lurks at every turn.”—The Washington Post

“This fantastic series opener, powered by an engaging, female-led cast of characters, is riveting from page one right through to the end, with almost every scene bringing new excitement and intrigue. All of the five leading women are richly drawn, with distinct voices and multidimensional personalities that never slip into caricature. [Kim] Wilkins sketches these royals with nuance and sensitivity, making even the vexing characters like careless Ivy and the villainous Wylm feel worthy of our sympathy. . . . Wilkins has struck gold with her thrilling high fantasy world. Book two can’t arrive soon enough!”—RT Book Reviews

“Readers who enjoy epic journeys and strong female protagonists will enjoy Wilkins’s first installment of her new Sisters of the Fire series.”—Booklist

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399177477
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/06/2018
Series:	Daughters of the Storm Series , #1
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	692,174
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Kim Wilkins was born in London and grew up at the seaside north of Brisbane, Australia. She has degrees in literature and creative writing and teaches at the University of Queensland. Her first novel, The Infernal, a supernatural thriller, was published in 1997. Since then she has published across many genres and for many different age groups. Her latest books, contemporary epic women’s fiction, are published under the pseudonym Kimberley Freeman. Wilkins has won many awards and is published all over the world. She lives in Brisbane with a bunch of lovable people and pets.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Daughters of the Storm"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Kim Wilkins.
Excerpted by permission of Random House Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

10/16/2017
Australian author Wilkins’s unsophisticated fantasy epic falls flat. In the generically European fantasy kingdom of Almissia, the king is in an enchanted sleep, and his five daughters set out together to find a magic user who may be able to wake him. The journey, too straightforward to be called a quest, is punctuated by predictable challenges that make the plot feel plodding and inevitable. The stereotypical characterization of the sisters, each of whom is selfish and unpleasant in her own way, forecast the attempted plot twists: the warrior thinks with her sword, the mystic has plot-convenient abilities, the flighty one and the strumpet cause political troubles with ill-advised affairs, and the religious zealot will betray anyone to serve her god. Readers hoping for an exciting female-led take on epic fantasy will instead find this book drearily familiar. Agent: Selwa Anthony, Selwa Anthony Author Management. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

2018-03-06
In the first of a Norse-inflected high fantasy series, five sisters (and one stepbrother) threaten the status quo of all the countries of Thyrsland.The once strong and hearty King Athelrick of Almissia is dying from a mysterious illness. While his despairing second wife, Queen Gudrun, claims that the king's sickness has a mundane cause, the king's eldest daughter, a quick-tempered, ruthlessly pragmatic warrior incongruously named Bluebell, is convinced that evil magic is at work…and she's right. Bluebell gathers her four sisters together in a quest for his cure only to discover that her siblings don't share her country- and family-first attitude; they have their own preoccupations. Queen Rose of Nettlechester longs for her lover, Heath, her royal husband's nephew, who secretly fathered her child. Ash feels overwhelmed by her growing affinity to undermagic and tormented by visions that she will one day doom thousands. Ivy resents leaving her comfortable life with her uncle and aunt while lusting for every good-looking man she sees. Willow has rejected her family's pantheistic religion in favor of the monotheistic, patriarchal trimartyr faith and believes that the god Maava's angels speak to her personally. And Gudrun's son by her first marriage, the ambitious Wylm, sees this calamity as an opportunity to claim the throne for himself. Wilkins does an excellent job of setting the stage for her series, but it's disappointing that most of the novel is basically a mechanism to put the characters in place for future drama later. The story is also short on surprises; it seems fairly obvious how the women's iconic roles (warrior, magician, priestess, etc.) and personal flaws will lead them toward tragedy. Given that the novel is clearly inspired by Norse folklore, that is probably deliberate but may lose some readers with more modern expectations. Ash redeems the book by being the most sympathetic and interesting of the bunch; her magic and intelligence make her more self-aware than her sisters, who generally fail to consider the consequences of their actions.Potentially interesting, but only time (i.e., future books) will tell.

Kirkus Reviews

[Daughters of the Storm] is a twisty high fantasy . . . exploring political machinations and the relationships between sisters; betrayal lurks at every turn.”—The Washington Post

“This fantastic series opener, powered by an engaging, female-led cast of characters, is riveting from page one right through to the end, with almost every scene bringing new excitement and intrigue. All of the five leading women are richly drawn, with distinct voices and multidimensional personalities that never slip into caricature. [Kim] Wilkins sketches these royals with nuance and sensitivity, making even the vexing characters like careless Ivy and the villainous Wylm feel worthy of our sympathy. . . . Wilkins has struck gold with her thrilling high fantasy world. Book two can’t arrive soon enough!”—RT Book Reviews

“Readers who enjoy epic journeys and strong female protagonists will enjoy Wilkins’s first installment of her new Sisters of the Fire series.”—Booklist

From the Publisher

01/01/2018
Aelthric, King of Thyrsland, is in a coma, the result of a magical curse. But this fact must be hidden, and his five daughters gather to find a cure that may lie with a long-lost relative in the north. With a stepbrother determined to take the kingdom they are trying to save, the sisters embark on an epic journey to find this powerful witch. Though they are tied by blood, the siblings—Bluebell, Rose, Ivy, Willow, and Ash—are very different from each other. Each sister, bearing her own secrets, will face decisions along the way that not only affect them but also those closest to them. The distinct but not always sympathetic personalities of these five women may polarize readers' sentiments at times, but the flaws and strengths of each are impossible to deny. VERDICT Wilkins's (The Infermal) Norse-inspired epic fantasy series debut highlights divided loyalties and ambitions that pit family members against one another, in a vividly drawn world where deception and devotion are two sides of the same blade. [See Prepub Alert, 10/9/17.]—Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., South DeerfieldA fate worse than death, strange births in a strange world, a witch's daughter forges her own path

Library Journal