Prism Cloud by Jeff Wheeler – Book Review

Prism Cloud is Book 4 in Jeff Wheeler‘s Harbinger series. It is set to release on March 5th, 2019. I received an advanced review copy courtesy of the publisher through NetGalley.

Fans of Wheeler’s are sure to be thrilled in this next installment of his latest series. The intensity ratchets up and prepares for the final book in the series where it all comes to a head.

Review of Prism Cloud

Full Disclosure: I have not read any of Jeff Wheeler’s books before. Not Muirwood, not the Queen’s Poisoner, not even Storm Glass or any of the subsequent books in the Harbinger series.

So why did I read this?

Well, I’d been interested in Jeff Wheeler for quite some time. I even bought The Queen’s Poisoner two years ago. But Prism Cloud was available for review and I decided to experiment.

Sometimes readers pick up a book in a series out of order. They might start with Book 2 instead of Book 1. Well I wanted to see how well author’s were at telling a story on its own, outside of the context of the rest of the books in a series.

My question were: Could Prism Cloud stand alone? And did the author give sufficient enough information to fill in the gaps for anyone who was just coming on board?

I’m happy to report that it’s a yes on both accounts.

Of course, there were a lot of things that I missed, like 3 books worth of back story, and three whole series of worldbuilding before that.

But for the most part I picked everything up pretty quickly.

My review of Prism Cloud will mostly be from the perspective of an outsider, and thus I’ve canned my usual format in favor of a more casual approach.

We start off our story with Cettie, an unusual character for a hero if I do say so myself. The beginning of her storyline was rather promising. There was some mystery, some action, an enemy that she only could assist with removing.

However, that enemy, the Fear Liath (which seemed to have plagued our character in the past) comes and goes from the story in a flash and seemingly has no purpose whatsoever in the remainder of the story. Perhaps all will be made known in the next book, but it doesn’t seem like it.

After that Cettie became rather boring in my opinion. Oh, I was still interested enough to not completely skip her chapters, but I definitely read through them quite a bit faster than the other POV, Sera.

I loved Sera.

Sera’s everything you want in a hero. She’s strong, she’s cunning, she’s daring, she’s smart, and there’s a bit of a romance plot around her.

Sera has to make a lot of tough decisions, and in the end its her who makes all the difference while Cettie is off being relatively useless.

That is not to say that Cettie is not important.

In fact, I can easily see where the author is going for Book 5, and Cettie will be very, very important there. In fact, I would venture to say she might be single most crucial character for the end game of this series. That’s just speculation, I can’t say for certain.

But she has absolutely nothing to do with the plot and conflict in this book despite 50% of the book being dedicated to her POV.

Let’s talk about this conflict.

I can’t say a whole lot without giving away spoilers considering I have no idea how much you already knew having read the previous 3 books. But I will say that deceptions, devious plots years in the making, and heartache are in store for just about every page throughout this journey.

Just when you think the last “wow” moment has been pulled, Wheeler breaks out another. Down to the very last page.

Certainly the last half of the book is far more entertaining than the first. The action ramps it up 10-fold at about the 45-48% mark, and it doesn’t let up.

It’s only unfortunate that it took so long to get there.

All in all, Prism Cloud is a sweeping epic filled with engaging political intrigue and genius plots that are sure to keep anyone burning the midnight oil.

Long-time fans of Wheeler will be deliciously rewarded in this book as some old characters from previous series make cameo appearances. Though their significance is somewhat lost on me, those in the know are sure to be delighted.

4/5 Stars

Interested in more reviews? Check out my review of Dark Shores by Danielle L Jensen.