The Aurelian Cycle #1 Fireborne Rosaria Munda

by Rosaria Munda
Fireborne Series: The Aurelian Cycle #1
Published by Penguin on December 29, 2020
Genres: Young Adult Fiction / Dystopian, Young Adult Fiction / Fantasy / General, Young Adult Fiction / Politics & Government
Pages: 464
Find the Author: Website, Blog, Goodreads, Amazon, Instagram
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"One of fantasy’s best series." —Booklist, starred review

Game of Thrones meets Fourth Wing in a debut young adult fantasy that's full of rivalry, romance . . . and dragons.

Annie and Lee were just children when a brutal revolution changed their world, giving everyone--even the lowborn--a chance to test into the governing class of dragonriders.

Now they are both rising stars in the new regime, despite backgrounds that couldn't be more different. Annie's lowborn family was executed by dragonfire, while Lee's aristocratic family was murdered by revolutionaries. Growing up in the same orphanage forged their friendship, and seven years of training have made them rivals for the top position in the dragonriding fleet.

But everything changes when survivors from the old regime surface, bent on reclaiming the city.

With war on the horizon and his relationship with Annie changing fast, Lee must choose to kill the only family he has left or to betray everything he's come to believe in. And Annie must decide whether to protect the boy she loves . . . or step up to be the champion her city needs.

From debut author Rosaria Munda comes a gripping adventure that calls into question which matters most: the family you were born into, or the one you've chosen.

Review:

Fireborne is a unique book to me, showing that things are not always black and white. There are morally gray areas in life, and choices can be gut-wrenching and not always seem clear-cut and a direct answer. I liked the characters, especially Annie and Lee. Even with the hardships each character faced, they seemed so grounded in reality, making them easy to sympathize with. I liked the slow and gradual romance between them. It was very refreshing. I like how Lee is not your typical revenge-seeking character. He is the opposite. He sees the horrible things his family did and does not want them repeated. I like how Annie knew all along who Lee really was but cared for and loved him enough that no matter what she suffered at the hands of his family, she did not automatically put him in the place of her family’s killer. I liked the plot of this book. It started with bits of one character’s past trauma and moved right along to the revolution that lost Lee and his family, how they do things with metal-based caste systems, and how being a dragon rider is an earned thing. Both characters struggle with what happened in the past and how to accept it and stay where they are now. Many bad things happen that put Lee in conflict with how he remembers things and how they were, and in the end, he chooses his side to fight for. So overall, I just loved this book and am looking forward to the sequel.

 

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