Review: Fire by Kristin Cashore

Title: Fire (Graceling Realm #2)

Author: Kristin Cashore

Release Date: January 25th 2011

Published by: Firebird

Read: May 27th, 2012

Pages: 528-Paperback

Series:

1. Graceling
2. Fire
3. Bitterblue

Description:

It is not a peaceful time in the Dells. In King City, the young King Nash is clinging to the throne, while rebel lords in the north and south build armies to unseat him. War is coming. And the mountains and forest are filled with spies and thieves. This is where Fire lives, a girl whose beauty is impossibly irresistible and who can control the minds of everyone around her. Exquisitely romantic, this companion to the highly praised Graceling has an entirely new cast of characters, save for one person who plays a pivotal role in both books. You don’t need to have read Graceling to love Fire. But if you haven’t, you’ll be dying to read it next.

What I thought:

This is set years before Graceling, and on the other side of the mountains from the first area. There are no people with Graces here, just monsters. The monsters are like normal animals to some extend, but they are rainbow coloured, beautiful and will eat you as soon as they can. Even rarer are the monsters in the form of people, who are too beautiful for most others to handle. Fire is one of these, with bright flame red hair, a beautiful face and the ability to hear and control thoughts.

The description is definitely right in saying you don’t need to have read Graceling to get this one. There is the mention of a certain young boy from the first book, and he does play a small role in this which was pretty cool. The story itself, there was a lot to it! So much kept happening, and changing, and developing, spies and allies and a possible war looming as well as the characters meeting and bonding. I had a hard time putting it down because I wanted to know what was going to happen next.

Fire was a pretty cool character, but just like Katsa, she didn’t want children or to marry. But she did have her reason, of not wanting to pass on the monster genes that were inside of her and have another monster like herself wandering around. Her cruel father is an example of this power gone wrong, and she wanted to prevent that from happening again. She actually does become moody at one point because other women can have children and she won’t, and it was so sad to read.

So although this wasn’t what I expected after reading the first book and I really wasn’t expecting the monsters,  it was well written and kept my attention the whole way. I ended up loving Fire’s character and her strength and watching her development into using her powers to help others.

Try out this awesome fantasy series, there’s lots of action, some romance and great characters!