Seasons of the Storm – Elle Cosimano

I had a really hard time finishing this book, for no particularly good reason. If I really had to nail something down, I think it was just a little bit too much teenage angst for me.

The books goes between a couple different viewpoints – primarily Jack and Fluer. They’re both Seasons – young people that have died prematurely, and at their time of death, were found by Gaia, and given an opportunity to come back with power. They’re assigned to a specific region and season, and each year, must kill the Season before them to advance the year. Jack is Winter, and Fleur is Spring. And each year, she finds it harder and harder to kill Jack.

Jack hatches a scheme to escape (they spend their off seasons partially in stasis in a bunker in Greenwich England), and enlists their Summer and Autumn. It turns out, if they don’t kill each other, they can combine powers. Gaia, and her father Chronos, seem to be afraid of that. Or maybe not?

The more I write this, the more I think the world building is the problem. It’s hinted that Chronos and Gaia are not the actual ancient gods they’re named for, but then, who are they? The four get some help along the way from another person, again with a really sketchy back story.

This book is actually fairly well self-contained, but there are more in the series. I hope they fill in some detail in those future stories, but I will not be checking them out. As it was, I was only able to finish this book because I bribed myself to not be able to read another book that I broke down and bought in paper form that I’ve been really looking forward to reading, until this one was done.