The Awakening Fire

The Awakening Fire is very much a plot driven work telling the story of three people competing for the throne of a kingdom in the wake of a revolution, each of them presenting very views and ideals towards that role. There are things that The Awakening Fire does very well, and there are things that it definitely struggles with. Fortunately for such a plot driven story, the plotting is definitely one of its strengths. I appreciate how each of the characters has very good reasons for their ambition. There is the entitled son of a deposed dynasty, trying to reestablish his family. There is the nominated successor of the overthrown king, relying on the support of the nobles and the compromises that entails. And there is the revolutionary idealist who is trying to reclaim a stolen inheritance. Three different and very believable rationales for their ambitions, these differences driving the plot and letting it flow in quite a satisfying way.

The characters themselves are all deeply flawed and frequently unlikeable. That in itself is not a problem as long as the agency for what they are doing feels valid, and for the large part it does here. When we move away from the contenders for the throne, the characterizations are slightly more problematic. I am not sure having the only openly gay character in the story being a villain and a rapist is a particularly comfortable move.

I am a little bit uncertain as to where the novel is pitched too - some aspects do have a somewhat YA feel but at the same time there are some decidedly adult themes in play (see the villain character above). There is certainly a darker aspect to alot of the story than I would expect in a YA story. That being said, the simplistic nature of some of the relationships is more YA in feel - the idealism in love from Hiero in particular. Nonetheless I think the tendency of people to try to pigeonhole books in these categories is not necessarily the most helpful either - but this is meant as a note that there is definitely something grimmer than a normal YA at work here.

I do have some issues with the prose in the book unfortunately, and this is where it drops down a bit for me - I found a lot of it quite clunky. In particular the dialogue definitely jars in places with a tendency for sudden grandiose statements to suddenly spring up in strange ways in conversation. It feels a bit like the author is still trying to find their voice. As far as I am aware this is the author's debut novel so this is not surprising, and I am sure with time this will even out a bit.

Ultimately I can see some decent potential - the plot work and the grasp of motivations and agency is definitely well done. I will keep an eye on the author to see how they develop