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urbanaudreye's review
4.0
This was a pretty good book. I enjoyed reading it quite a bit. Fire and Shadow is about a girl who upon turning 18 discovers she's a fire starter. She leaves her family home to go and learn how to control her newfound abilities and falls in love with an older man. They call him a magician, but really he's something quite peculiar... An odd type of shifter.
My copy also had several other short stories included. All of which were pretty great. All in all, I'd say Imogen Howson is quite the talented writer.
*I received a copy of this book for free. The review is my own, honest, and unsolicited.
My copy also had several other short stories included. All of which were pretty great. All in all, I'd say Imogen Howson is quite the talented writer.
*I received a copy of this book for free. The review is my own, honest, and unsolicited.
prationality's review
4.0
Fern is, for all intents and purposes, a pretty blank slate starting out. Until her powers manifest there isn't much to her. The world she lives in intrigued me though, hinting at things that made people frightened within their own homes, whispers and such. The threat Fern's family feels from the 'shadows' is palatable, especially when Fern's sister-in-law Sophia explodes in angry fright at Fern's nieces and nephew. Tension by any other name...
Fern develops these powers and its decided by all that it would be much much safer for them if she is far far away from them. Especially if she can't learn to control her powers. A school of magic is located just beyond the forest and they can hopefully help her. You can tell that they struggle to feel that hope though. Small isolated village like theirs hadn't seen a fire-started in ages, they weren't sure whether to be more scared of her or the shadows!
And the trek to through the swamp and forest is where Fern becomes more interesting. As she becomes more confident in her control, she loosens up and can see what she would have been like if fear didn't rule. Zephyr I was the most interested in, with his horribly damaged mind and limited sanity. As for everyone else we're given the minimum of their histories. Just enough to flesh them out, but not a whole lot to fill them out.
Fern's time at the school was the best part--as she learns to control her gifts, meeting other mutantsmagic-users like herself and falling in love with Nik. Their feelings developed through their fighting and arguing and not truly listening to each other, but they understood each other. Communication kind of sucked for everyone in the book anyhow since, as a general rule, everyone seemed to be stubborn and pig-headed.
Everything was going well, then of course it doesn't and the end...it felt very rushed. After chapters of detail given to a lot of things, the ending goes too quickly and under done. Without giving away too much Nik's secret is revealed and this leads to some interesting developments for his relationship with Fern. Which was fine, but the execution was off. It's a big huge deal, but its only given about fifteen pages max to wrap up everything.
Overall for just over 100 pages, this makes for a fun, intriguing read. The ending is almost a deus ex machina, but the story is worth reading for the world it sets up. I hope that Howson has a sequel planned, because I know I'm looking forward to learning more about what happens next for Fern and Nik.
Fern develops these powers and its decided by all that it would be much much safer for them if she is far far away from them. Especially if she can't learn to control her powers. A school of magic is located just beyond the forest and they can hopefully help her. You can tell that they struggle to feel that hope though. Small isolated village like theirs hadn't seen a fire-started in ages, they weren't sure whether to be more scared of her or the shadows!
And the trek to through the swamp and forest is where Fern becomes more interesting. As she becomes more confident in her control, she loosens up and can see what she would have been like if fear didn't rule. Zephyr I was the most interested in, with his horribly damaged mind and limited sanity. As for everyone else we're given the minimum of their histories. Just enough to flesh them out, but not a whole lot to fill them out.
Fern's time at the school was the best part--as she learns to control her gifts, meeting other mutantsmagic-users like herself and falling in love with Nik. Their feelings developed through their fighting and arguing and not truly listening to each other, but they understood each other. Communication kind of sucked for everyone in the book anyhow since, as a general rule, everyone seemed to be stubborn and pig-headed.
Everything was going well, then of course it doesn't and the end...it felt very rushed. After chapters of detail given to a lot of things, the ending goes too quickly and under done. Without giving away too much Nik's secret is revealed and this leads to some interesting developments for his relationship with Fern. Which was fine, but the execution was off. It's a big huge deal, but its only given about fifteen pages max to wrap up everything.
Overall for just over 100 pages, this makes for a fun, intriguing read. The ending is almost a deus ex machina, but the story is worth reading for the world it sets up. I hope that Howson has a sequel planned, because I know I'm looking forward to learning more about what happens next for Fern and Nik.
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