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You can find my review of Fire too!


This was the most gorgeous romantic fantasy I’ve read in a while. And want to know what the last one was? â€�Ìý³Ò°ù²¹³¦±ð±ô¾±²Ô²µ!! Kristin Cashore is just so good at writing these beautiful, deep relationships that stem from trust and acceptance.

It’s been 24 hours since I’ve read this book and I just. can’t. stop. thinking about it! How much these two characters cared for each other makes me so happy.

No insta-love here, folks. Just a beautifully slow progression from less than friends to lovers.

Fire takes place many years before the events of Graceling, and involves all new characters except for one. Fire lives in the Dells, a place so divided from the Seven Kingdoms that they don’t even know each other exist.

Within the Dells there are monsters � animals with bizarre, unnatural colorings: bright blue kittens, orange raptors, purple mountain lions. There are even monster humans � and Fire is one of them, and the last of her kind.

Fire has fiery red hair and intangible beauty that makes any onlooker go mad. She also possesses the rare ability to control minds, an ability that could be very useful to her kingdom as it is on the verge of war.

That’s when Prince Brigan arrives, asking Fire to come to King’s City to use her powers to undercover the plans of enemies and traitors. But Fire fears becoming the monster her father was, and she may let her doubts get in the way of everything � even true love.

The romance aspect of the plot is significant, but progresses slowly and organically. The other side of the plot is the impending war. There’s lots of talking about the armies, enemies, attacks, traitors, planning and plotting, etc.

If you find a war setting boring, you may not enjoy this book because it is a large portion of the plot. 

What I love about this series is that Kristin Cashore always incorporates powerful women/feminist themes into these fantastical stories. In a “war� setting one would expect to see mostly men, especially in this medieval time period. But in the Dells, woman are in the army, and some are even ranked very highly. It was refreshing to see some strong female characters in not so typical settings.

Additionally, Kristin Cashore is one of the few YA authors who actually mentioned a woman getting her period. I know a lot of people thought the multiple mentions of this was redundant in the book, but I just appreciated it was mentioned in general.

I know some people have an issue with how the women act in this book � have sex with multiple men, get pregnant, cheat with or on, etc � and they say Kristin Cashore is spreading the message that these types of behaviors are “okay�. For me, I didn’t really see it that way. I think that this is simply just a different world, a different time period � people act differently, have different viewpoints on marriage and casual sex, etc. But if these aspects are ones that you’d be upset by, I would recommend not reading this book because they come up quite a bit. There are also mentions of acts of rape, but no graphic scenes.

As for the characters, I really loved them, even the less significant ones. The main protagonists are so strong and multi-layered, I loved learning about their life and watching them overcome difficult points of their life. Fire shows a lot of strength and will power throughout the book, and her love interest was endlessly charming, considerate, and understanding � I loved them both so much.

Overall, I was worried about not liking this book because it was all new characters, but I absolutely loved it â€� equally as much as Graceling! I love romance in fantasy and this was just done so perfectly. I also loved this new world full of monsters and beauty, and the many side characters we met along the way. Although I don’t usually like war settings in books, I liked this one because it wasn’t too heavy and overly detailed, and was mixed in well among the romance. Overall, I’m loving theÌý³Ò°ù²¹³¦±ð±ô¾±²Ô²µ Realm so far! I cannot wait to start Bitterblue