Great YA Fantasy!

What a positively fascinating and original setting for a Fantasy novel! You many be forgiven for thinking this book has a historical, medieval-type setting. But, alas, you would be wrong. Well, at least, you'd only be half right. You see, it's actually futuristic! Set in a dystopian society in the not-too-distant future, held captive under a forcefield dome thingy in some re-imagined version of King Author's Camelot! Now if that's not original, I don't know what is. The only difference with this version of the mythical Utopian realm, is that it's as fake as a Hollywood smile, and full of incongruous, out-of-place modern conveniences, like electricity and communication devices. Why? Oh, who knows... Because the tyrannical ruler, King Hart, felt like it one day? He had a vision of the perfect society - complete with adopted speech patterns and dialect, authentic clothing, knights and fair maidens, etc, etc. Only the problem with things that are fake, false and forced, is that their lustre wears off all-too-quickly, and soon only ugliness can be found where once held allure. As is the case in FIREBLOOD.

Naturally, the person to untangle this maniacal mess is our main character, Zara, or, Princess Zara, as she's soon called, after being called upon at the beginning of the story to be the Crown Prince's new bride-to-be, whether she wants to or not. And she most assuredly does not. With the royal guards beating down her door, however, she has little choice, and is soon sequestered in the Prince's keep. But what of the prince? Can he be as bad as she's always believed? And what of the Prince's first knight, Devlan, and they way he makes her feel? It's a tangled web, to be sure, but one that held this reader's attention fast and firm throughout.

I enjoyed Zara's character quite a bit. She did confuse me on occasion, though. Particularly at the beginning of the book when she seemed to swing erratically between outspoken objector, and demure subservient. Her backbone seemed to come and go with the wind, which was odd. Nevertheless, she made tremendous progress as the story progressed and was a heroine worth championing by the end, which is what counts, right?

I have to say, it was very satisfying in how neatly FIREBLOOD was wrapped up. So much so, in fact, that I was actually surprised to note that it's slated to be a series rather than a standalone title. I think it certainly works well as a standalone and could be read as such, and I can only guess and what other torments the author has in store for her characters in future instalments!

To sum up, while not a perfect novel by any means, FIREBLOOD was an original enough worldbuilding concept, with diverse and unpredictable characters, to have me awarding it a very healthy 4 stars.

Great fun!

4 Stars ★★★★
ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.