eARC Review: Prelude of Fire by Christine E. Schulze
Release date: 25 October 2024 (Initially released from a different publisher in 2020)
Rating: 4.5/5
Synopsis: Ashlai is a Fyre who can harness powers of flame from the sun. Despite her powers, or perhaps because of them, she has always felt like an outsider among the Forest-footer Elves who raised her and her brother, Merritt.
When their home is attacked by King Ragnar and his "Sere," a vicious drought that burns all in its path, Ashlai embarks on a quest to save it. Her only clues are the strange music playing inside her head, the warnings of a captive princess, and a broken prism left to her by her long-lost mother.
With the help of new friends, including a snarky elf, two squabbling but kind-spirited bards, and a boy who can turn into a tree, Ashlai journeys to collect the remaining prism shards.
Can she find them and defeat Ragnar before his Sere consumes all Hyloria?
Or will the secrets of the prism cause Ashlai to lose her new friends, her family, and even herself?
Prelude of Fire is the first in an epic quartet that combines music and magic while reminding us that our choices, not our circumstances, define who we truly are and will become.
Review
I didn’t know I needed a YA quest narrative with some serious twists and jaw-dropping moments, but I read this and realized how much I did. Ashlai and the folk she meets up with along the way perfectly embody why I love fantasy and remind me that, at one time, I did love YA. Prelude of Fire packs a punch with almost 500 pages, and it’s pretty much a standalone in a connected universe (from what I gather of the synopsis for the next book in the Quartet, Serenade of Kings), so folks who don’t like reading series before they all come out will enjoy this one. It also contains appropriate content for the genre, which I find incredibly refreshing.
Along with a fantastic amount of pages, Prelude of Fire gives us an amount of characters to rival an adult fantasy saga. I love that in a fantasy, as it gives my mind some engagement. Though Ashlai serves as the main character, she doesn’t stand out particularly from the others she joins up with along her quest to collect prism shards and save her home from Ragnar and his Sere. Well, at least not until stuff goes down and we find out stuff. Those are spoilers, though. Aryl, our boy who can turn into a tree, grows quite close to Ashlai. Though they got off to a rocky start, their friendship serves as an anchor when Ashlai needs extra support. There are moments when Aryl tells the group things its members do not want to hear, and like Neville Longbottom, he gives a stalwart example of integrity. The relationships Ashlai cultivates with her traveling companions shows a degree of simultaneous maturity and naiveté, which some find may annoying. I do not.
Unlike many quest fantasies, the characters do not just move from point A to point B, collecting snowflakes and making a character snowball. The plot serves to wonderfully complement the cast as well. There is no middle lag, and any lulls that happen while our adventurers travel will randomly drop a twist and necessitate a backwards flipping of pages. The plot feels superficially linear, but the underlying layer of backstory (which did not dump) slowly reveals to the reader the deeper purpose and destiny of ALL of our characters.
Some of the interactions between characters are a bit juvenile, but I happen appreciate a sense of the juvenile in a YA novel. YA books are for children, after all. When the characters act contrary to how normal children from 12-17 (the age for which YA is written and to which YA is marketed) would act, the narrative loses any semblance of believability for me. I loved that Prelude of Fire preserved that essence of youth while showing the pains and trials of growing up alongside the fantastic elements. The adults act like adults also. Schulze shows such a great balance here, and I loved it. I think I can count on half a hand the times lately I’ve picked up a YA book from B5 publishing houses that pack stories full of content NOT appropriate for the marketed audience—including some of the most popular ones I see all over social media. Prelude of Fire definitely preserves the innocence of the reader while providing a complex and stimulating storyline.
Readers who search for YA with intricate plots, wholesome friendships, and serious jaw-dropping twists will certainly appreciate Prelude of Fire. It is a quest/adventure fantasy, so it contains some violence, but I found no explicit language or sexual content. Bonus points for the nods to The Legend of Zelda. I truly enjoyed those. I believe I’ll be checking out this author’s other selections to see if I found some more books to recommend to some high school fantasy lovers.
My thanks to the author for the eARC, for which I willingly give my own, honest opinion.
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