Fire Falling by Elise Kova

Title: Fire Falling

Author: Elise Kova

Series: Air Awakens #2

Genre: Fantasy, YA, Elemental, Magic, Romance, Swords, Medieval

Source: Kindle

Pages: 378

Rating: 4.5 stars

Available at:

Amazon (CA) • Goodreads • Amazon (US)

Blurb:

Vhalla Yarl marches to war as property of the Solaris Empire. The Emperor counts on her to bring victory, the Senate counts on her death, and the only thing Vhalla can count on is the fight of her life. As she grapples with the ghosts of her past, new challenges in the present threaten to shatter the remnants of her fragile sanity. Will she maintain her humanity? Or will she truly become the Empire’s monster?

Fire Falling is the second book in the Air Awakens Series.

Review:

Oh god. Prepare for an ending that will make your heart stop.

Elise Kova continues to amaze me. In the sequel to her debut novel Air Awakens (you can read my review HERE), Elise continues to demonstrate her sheer mastery of the written language. Within a few pages she can make you laugh, cheer, panic, and cry. The power she has over her readers is amazing, and I simply could not put this book down for a second. I’m pretty sure that Elise might be a sorceress, because not only are her books about magic, but they are magic in themselves. It’s art, plain and simple.

The plot has definitely deepened in Fire Falling. Vhalla is a servent to the crown, being forced to fight in the Emperor’s war to capture the North. Not only does she have to figure out her magic, but she has to learn to defend herself by more physical means, all while trying to figure out what is going on between her and a certain dark prince. I loved this book because not only does the plot deepen and continue from where we left off in the first book of the series, but the characters do to. We meet some new people who seem as though they might be becoming some lead roles on the stage that is the Solaris universe, and we also get to see TONS of character development not just from Vhalla and Aldrik (which they do, in abundance!) but from some of the more minor characters in the first book that will play more important roles as the series continues. To name just a few we see Baldir and Larel become closer to Vhalla, which I loved.

I had a hard time with Vhalla during this book. I found that she was a little ‘poor-me’ during this book while pining for Aldrik. I mean, I understood it was kind of necessary for the character, and she did grow to be a bit stronger as the novel went on, but I do hope that we get to see Vhalla become more sure of herself as the series goes on. She has so much potential to be badass, and I truly believe that we will get to see that eventually. Saying that, this was pretty much the only reason I gave the book 4.5 stars instead of five. But considering Amazon doesn’t let you post half stars, I’m going to give Elise Kova the benefit of the doubt here and round it up.

We get to see so much more action in this book, and it was powerful. I was constantly at the edge of me seat desperate to read was happened next. What I love about this series (so far anyways) is that it really has the power to completely draw you into the book until it feels like you are right alongside Vhalla experiencing everything she does as if it were you. That is just another testament to Elise’s writing which, in case you didn’t get the memo, is bloody fantastic! Also, I just want to quickly mention the fabulous cover art once again. The cover art is something that initially drew me into Air Awakens, and here there was no exception!

Overall, I think that this was a great sequel to the series and I absolutely cannot wait to see where Elise takes us in Earth’s End, the third instalment of the series. If you haven’t started the series yet, get on it! This is a definite must read for all those YA fantasy lovers out there!

Air Awakens by Elise Kova

Title: Air Awakens

Author: Elise Kova

Series: Air Awakens #1

Genre: Fantasy, YA, Elemental, Magic, Romance, Swords, Medieval

Source: Kindle

Pages: 377

Rating: 5 stars

Available at:

Amazon (CA) • Goodreads • Amazon (US)

Blurb:

A library apprentice, a sorcerer prince, and an unbreakable magic bond...

The Solaris Empire is one conquest away from uniting the continent, and the rare elemental magic sleeping in seventeen-year-old library apprentice Vhalla Yarl could shift the tides of war.

Vhalla has always been taught to fear the Tower of Sorcerers, a mysterious magic society, and has been happy in her quiet world of books. But after she unknowingly saves the life of one of the most powerful sorcerers of them all—the Crown Prince Aldrik—she finds herself enticed into his world. Now she must decide her future: Embrace her sorcery and leave the life she’s known, or eradicate her magic and remain as she’s always been. And with powerful forces lurking in the shadows, Vhalla’s indecision could cost her more than she ever imagined.

Review:

Wow. Just wow.

This book first caught my eye while I was browsing Amazon for some new kindle books because of its cover art. I don’t tend to see a ton of drawn cover art, or maybe I have and I just haven’t really realized it, but regardless, this cover art was so beautiful that I had to click the link and find out what it was about. I read the blurb (which you can see above) and I was already drawn in. I loved the concept, I loved the main character’s name, and I loved that the main character was a book lover (aka library apprentice). So, I gave it a shot. And boy am I glad I did.

First looking at the writing, it was beautiful. It was eloquent, it was mature, and it really drew you into the story. I find sometimes that bad writing can really distract me from the story itself, but Elise Kova’s writing was a siren that called me to keep reading until it was 2am and my exhaustion came second only to my desire to read more and learn what happened next. Partnered with her fabulous writing is her intriguing plot. I think we have all read the story where the book loving, low born girl falls in love with a hard headed prince, but Kova made it her own! The world she creates in this album was a piece of art, and everything in it had the distinct purpose of driving the plot and the character’s development forward. It sounds simple, but so many authors fall into the trap of writing fluff that is entertaining, but doesn’t do much for the story other than entertain the audience.

And speaking of character development, another point goes to Elise Kova! While this was the first novel of the series, and not a ton of development is expected coming out of the starting gate, Kova surprised me by the amount of development we do see in Vhalla (our main character), and the dark and mysterious heir to the throne, Aldrik. Within the 350+ pages, we get a good first glimpse of who these characters might become as the story goes forward. Aldrik is desperate to let someone in, and by some twist of fate, Vhalla is put in a position where she can, and does. The author conveys so much emotion in these characters with so little effort, it is really something to behold. I expect more to come in the next instalment of the series, Fire Falling, and I can’t wait to see how not only the characters grow, but how the relationships between the characters grow as well. I am also excited to see how some of minor character’s in book 1 might grow to become more central!

I absolutely love this kind of love story, the ones that start off with a not so pleasant relationship, but slowly turn into something more. Aldrik is such an arrogant jerk, and every girl loves the bad boy deep down. It’s always fascinating to see how those layers get exposed, and learning who the man is behind the arrogant exterior. We get a taste of that in Air Awakens, and I think it’s safe to say we can expect more as the series will move on.

Overall, this was a great read. It was intriguing, enthralling, and it was excellently written. This is one of those cases where you really can judge a book by its cover! 5 stars for Air Awakens, and I encourage every YA fantasy reader to give Elise Kova’s debut novel a shot!  

Charcoal Tears by Jane Washington

Title: Charcoal Tears

Author: Jane Washington

Series: Seraph Black Series #1

Genre: YA, Supernatural, Romance, Magic Powers, Suspense, Crime (sort of)

Source: ARC

Pages: 268

Rating: 4.5

Available at:

Amazon (CA) • Goodreads • Amazon (US)

Blurb:

“You see, there is safety in simplicity… in a life of simple peace, where the electricity doesn’t dance across the backs of my eyelids, and the sparks don’t slither over my consciousness. Only asinine peace, where my paintings don’t seem to paint themselves, leaving me with terrible feelings of premonition and a chill beneath my fingernails.”

Seraph Black used to think that she was prepared for anything. She could last days without eating, and she always walked away from the violent altercations with her father relatively unharmed. She even survived working at the club, surrounded by the dregs of society, all staring into their bottles instead of noticing the unravelling lives that trailed behind them.

She had thought that she could survive anything, but she wasn’t prepared for Noah and Cabe to come bulldozing into her life, careless of the precious secrets they picked apart in their quest to take over her world. She was even less prepared for the mysterious Miro and Silas, but most of all…
Most of all… it was the stalker that threatened her talent for surviving. She wasn’t ready for the photos, and the messages. The warnings. The threats.

Seraph’s life of surviving in the shadows was over, because the searchlight had found her, and there was nowhere that she could hide

Review:

This is the second book I have received in exchange for a review by Jane Washington (the first being Hereditary which you can read HERE). I said it for Hereditary, and I will say it again, the book was fantastic! The ideas were outstanding and unique, the writing was intriguing and well versed, the plot had all the right ingredients for perfection, and the execution? Well, it wavered for me in some areas, but overall, a HUGE step up from Hereditary.

Starting off with the characters, we have a very relatable main character that narrates her story for the reader. She is a girl whose mother has died, her father is abusive, she is responsible for not only herself, but her little brother, and she feels like she is alone in the world. So, when two mysterious strangers come into her life and want to be her friends, it’s a huge deal because she no longer feels like such a freak. Washington does a fantastic job of writing Seraph as a character. She doesn’t develop too much, only slightly by the end of the book, but we do get to see some major character development from Silas, one of the love interests in the novel. And if I am being honest, it was a good move on the authors part. It was so much more interesting to see his development than Seraph’s, and the way Seraph is developing (slowly but surely) matches who her character is.

I can’t complain terribly about the writing. I did see a few errors, but then again I did receive an ARC copy so I am not shocked by them and they didn’t sway my opinion on the books rating. What I did have a bit of a hard time with was that the novel is set in Seattle, which is in America, and yet the jargon (slang/ lingo) is clearly British. Luckily, I am currently living in Ireland and I have caught on to a lot of the slang here so I didn’t have that big of a problem with reading it, but it was distracting for me nonetheless. It would have been one thing if it was set in the UK, but with it being set in America, I felt that there needed to be an effort toward straying away from the British slang and adapting toward the American version, and/or change the setting of the novel to the UK… Unless there is a Seattle in the UK that I don’t know about that is? Of course, other than this, the novel is VERY well written, and having reread Hereditary before starting this novel, I can already see the massive improvement not only in Jane Washington’s writing, but also her ability to craft a plot.

Jane Washington has always been good with a good love triangle, or a love rectangle, plus one, whatever that is (anyone catch the One Tree Hill reference there? I couldn’t resist <3), but in this novel, she really brings it to new heights and I was incredibly impressed. It didn’t feel forced, and it didn’t feel awkward, or like Seraph was being torn in different directions, or that her heart was suffering, it actually felt very natural. One of my biggest complaints about Hereditary was that the connections the main character made to new characters (i.e. new friends at a new school) felt very rushed. She trusted these people right away and they were all BFF’s with a snap of the finger and it didn’t feel developed or natural at all. In this case, you get a flavor of that, Seraph trusts the guys almost immediately, but there is a whole supernatural explanation for it that justifies the inexplicable connection. Even then, she admits to herself (and the reader) that she isn’t 100% sure she does trust them, but she tries her best to. So, I have to give a huge round of applause for finding a creative work around for a previous plot problem.

Plot wise, I was kind of disappointed that we didn’t find out how Seraph’s mother died… there was definitely the opportunity for it, but it never presented itself. Also, the Seraph alludes to being sexually abused, but that is never really elaborated on either. However, she definitely acts like a victim of sexual abuse, especially in the beginning in the novel. I do feel like there is a HUGE gap where her past is concerned, and that was a problem for me in this book. Saying that, there are two more books in the series, so it might get answered for me. Speaking of more books in the series, did you know that the second book is out? Yeah, I already bought it. And I’m going to read it 10 seconds after I post this. Goodbye sleep, I didn’t need you anyways! That cliff hanger is too much for me to wait!!

Anyways, overall, great book, I loved it, you will love it, but it, read it, and tell all your friends about it J Now, I have to go, Watercolour Smile is calling my name!