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Series: The Orc Prince Trilogy by Lionel Hart

Greetings and welcome to Reviews That Burn: Series Reviews, part of Books That Burn. Series Reviews discuss at least three books in a series and cover the overarching themes and development of the story across several books. I'd like to thank longtime Patron Case Aiken, who receives a monthly shoutout. Full Audio Here   An elven prince. The son of an orc warlord. In two warring nations, their arranged marriage brings peace. They never expected to fall in love. Prince Taegan Glynzeiros has prepared since childhood to fight and lead armies against invading orc forces, the enemies of elves for hundreds of years. But after a successful peace treaty, the elven prince will not be fighting orcs, but marrying one. The first words he speaks to Zorvut are their wedding vows. Despite being considered the runt amongst the orc warlord’s children, Taegan finds him to be intelligent and thoughtful—everything the stereotypes about orcs say he shouldn’t be. He doesn’t want to fall in love, but Zorv...

Animorphs Book 16: The Warning by K. A. Applegate

The Warning shows Jake's increasing sense of internalized pressure as a leader. He's in charge and increasingly isolated. When he almost dies in an insect morph the text takes the time to dwell on his fear and helplessness in a pretty brutal way.

There's some fun stuff with 90's computer tech and chat rooms, but this is not a light book. There's a sense of helplessness, and the crushing reality that no matter how many people they can save, someone is still getting hurt.

Cassie is starting to be more of a lieutenant and confidant to Jake in terms of decision making and ethics. She has been the ethical voice of the team for a while, but this book codifies some parts of their dynamic in a way that feel natural.

These review are spoiler-free, but my stance is that "almost dies in an XXX morph" really isn't a spoiler for this series, since that's a constant in almost every book. You know it's "almost" because there are more books with him on the cover, and morphing is often dangerous. It's mostly used for combat/infiltration, which is dangerous. Even the act of morphing is dangerous due to the possibility of being trapped in morph.

A boy (Jake) turns into a rhinoceros

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