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A review by louise1608
Fireborn by Aisling Fowler
5.0
You can find my full review for this as well as other books on my blog here
First of all as usual I would like to thank Dave @The_WriteReads for organising the tour as well as the author and publisher for my stunning ARC copy of the book. It is always a pleasure to take part and help to promote such a brilliant book!
I absolutely loved this book, it has everything that I love in a MG fantasy book and more!
Set in the world of Ember children from various clans end up living at the hunting lodge and training to become hunters to protect every clan from the monsters that threaten the world.
These children go to the lodge for various reasons, a lot because they are unwanted/abandoned by their families and some because their families are sadly dead and they feel they have nowhere else to go.
When they arrive at the lodge they give up their names, pasts and everything about them. They train in weapons and learn to defend themselves and fight monsters of all kinds.
Until they become fully fledged hunters the children are known as huntlings and go by a number instead of a name.
In this book we follow the story of four of these huntlings. Twelve, Five, Six and Seven as well as the lodge guardian Dog and Twelve’s adorable squirrel companion Widge.
The hunters and huntlings of the lodge are like family and honour their pledge to protect each other as well as every person of the varying clans of Ember from the dark creatures that lurk out in the wild.
As I mentioned previously there are a tonne of different magical creatures, many of which are referred to from a “Magical Bestiary” which gives lots of information about them including how dangerous they are and how to fight them. I really liked this and loved learning about the different creatures, some of which I have never read of anything similar to before so it was all very imaginative and fun! Some of the creatures sounded ridiculously scary to me, like the Deathspinner! I definitely would not want to meet one of those!
Since the Dark War, Ember has been mostly at peace but one night after a fight breaks out between Twelve and Five which results in the two of them spending the night in the dungeons, all hell breaks loose and one of the huntlings is kidnapped by Goblins. Twelve, Five, Six and Dog team up to rescue her and from then on the book is all adventure, scary monsters, fighting and danger!
Twelve goes on a real journey here and though she starts off incredibly cold, arrogant, self serving and very morally grey the way that her character grows and develops throughout the book is amazing and I really enjoyed it. She is a broken girl when we first meet her and it really is no wonder with what she has been through.
I really liked the way the author slowly explored her past through dreams and memories throughout the book. It helped a lot to understand what had happened to her and why she acts the way that she does.
Five and Six were both intriguing characters but I feel like Five was not fully explored the way the others were and it would have been nice to learn more about him and what led him to the lodge.
The last thing I’ll cover off in my review is that HUGE twist/revelation toward the end. I will not go into the details of what it was obviously but I will say that I think it was very, very well done. It honestly left my jaw on the floor and my heart a little bit broken by the way the truth was forced to come out.
You also do not find out or even suspect who the real villain is in the story until the end and I never even suspected it so that was a brilliant surprise!
Overall I really enjoyed this, it is easily the best Middle Grade I have read all year and I do hope there will be a sequel as the way it ended is definitely open to one!
First of all as usual I would like to thank Dave @The_WriteReads for organising the tour as well as the author and publisher for my stunning ARC copy of the book. It is always a pleasure to take part and help to promote such a brilliant book!
I absolutely loved this book, it has everything that I love in a MG fantasy book and more!
Set in the world of Ember children from various clans end up living at the hunting lodge and training to become hunters to protect every clan from the monsters that threaten the world.
These children go to the lodge for various reasons, a lot because they are unwanted/abandoned by their families and some because their families are sadly dead and they feel they have nowhere else to go.
When they arrive at the lodge they give up their names, pasts and everything about them. They train in weapons and learn to defend themselves and fight monsters of all kinds.
Until they become fully fledged hunters the children are known as huntlings and go by a number instead of a name.
In this book we follow the story of four of these huntlings. Twelve, Five, Six and Seven as well as the lodge guardian Dog and Twelve’s adorable squirrel companion Widge.
The hunters and huntlings of the lodge are like family and honour their pledge to protect each other as well as every person of the varying clans of Ember from the dark creatures that lurk out in the wild.
As I mentioned previously there are a tonne of different magical creatures, many of which are referred to from a “Magical Bestiary” which gives lots of information about them including how dangerous they are and how to fight them. I really liked this and loved learning about the different creatures, some of which I have never read of anything similar to before so it was all very imaginative and fun! Some of the creatures sounded ridiculously scary to me, like the Deathspinner! I definitely would not want to meet one of those!
Since the Dark War, Ember has been mostly at peace but one night after a fight breaks out between Twelve and Five which results in the two of them spending the night in the dungeons, all hell breaks loose and one of the huntlings is kidnapped by Goblins. Twelve, Five, Six and Dog team up to rescue her and from then on the book is all adventure, scary monsters, fighting and danger!
Twelve goes on a real journey here and though she starts off incredibly cold, arrogant, self serving and very morally grey the way that her character grows and develops throughout the book is amazing and I really enjoyed it. She is a broken girl when we first meet her and it really is no wonder with what she has been through.
I really liked the way the author slowly explored her past through dreams and memories throughout the book. It helped a lot to understand what had happened to her and why she acts the way that she does.
Five and Six were both intriguing characters but I feel like Five was not fully explored the way the others were and it would have been nice to learn more about him and what led him to the lodge.
The last thing I’ll cover off in my review is that HUGE twist/revelation toward the end. I will not go into the details of what it was obviously but I will say that I think it was very, very well done. It honestly left my jaw on the floor and my heart a little bit broken by the way the truth was forced to come out.
You also do not find out or even suspect who the real villain is in the story until the end and I never even suspected it so that was a brilliant surprise!
Overall I really enjoyed this, it is easily the best Middle Grade I have read all year and I do hope there will be a sequel as the way it ended is definitely open to one!