Raye Wagner

Thank you to Raye Wagner and Rita Stradling for the personal invitation to review a pre-reader advanced copy of Magic of Fire and Shadows (Curse of the Ctyri, Book 1) for an honest review.

First and foremost, what I have to start out by saying I love about this world is broken down into two parts: world building and mythic background.

One — I love, love, love that this world feels so teemingly big, and spread out. I love that we haven't been force-fed pages of background or a million details, but instead, our understanding of these worlds, these kingdoms, these people, is given to us piece by piece from one of our two pod characters. It shows a trust in the readers to let them put things together, and it leaves a lot of room for other stories to be told in this world.

Two — I love the abundant use of mythology, mythic character, fairy tales, and legends from any number of backgrounds across our own world and stories. I loved seeing how things were taken and twined together in both the foreground and what was happening with the characters, in the background, for bein, even more, pieced together in subtle story pieces.

I am a fan in writing of both the singular point of view and of the multiples, think the normal YA book and then a comparison with books such as Game of Thrones and The Expanse, but I always hinge on one important thing where it blurs into the many — it has to serve a point in the story, and this story absolutely does!

Because of our two POV vantage point we get to see both societies, how they feel about each other, why they are interacting with each other the way they are, and how every dominoes in each other place, which gives us a very intriguing and in-depth viewpoint from an insider and outside, in every parts. Even more so, we’re championed by both sides of view to embrace and support both of our main characters in their own kinds of strength, faith, bravery, and embracing or battling their own feelings, choices, and even mistakes.

There’s a little bit here for everyone: magic, mystery, intrigue, danger, despair, evil machinations, startling hope, daring bravery, and a touch of slow burn romance. I will definitely be getting a copy for my classroom and recommending it out to our librarian, and students after it’s published.

(As a tiny aside for those who need to know, there is a cliffhanger, but it’s definitely worth it and it will leave you longing for the next book to start right now!)… (més)

This is such a great series! I'm not sure how two authors write a book together but whatever they have done, it works.

The first book introduced us to Ryn who lived in a world where the land was suffering because the king had hunted down and killed all of the Phaetyn for their bloid to make him immortal. He had not realized that killing the healers of the land would kill the land and throw the kingdom into a famine, not that the king cared about his people. He only cared for his own power.

Ryn discovered that she was a Phaetyn when she was captured by the king's Drae, Lord Irrik, who was bonded to the king through a blood oath.

This book starts after the king was defeated.

Ryn, Tyrrik and Dyter leave the kingdom of Verald on a quest for the new king to build alliances with the other countries in the realm to unite against Emperor Draeden. Ryn's goals are different from the others because she just wants to go to the Zivost Forest to meet other Phaetyn and learn about her powers.

Tyrrik just wants Ryn and would do anything to keep her safe. I am totally in love with Tyrrik. He is has everything I look in a character. He seemed evil but wasn't. He had to do everything the king demanded but he worked around the bond to protect Ryn who was also part Drae. He is fiercely protective of Ryn yet isn't overbearing, although Ryn thinks he is. He does not hide his affection for her not his hurt that she fights her affection for him.

I can't wait to read the next book. The plot keeps getting more complex and better.… (més)

I stayed up until 4:00 a.m. to finish this book because it was so captivating.

Though she lives in a kingdom controlled by a sadistic king who has caused the land to become infertile by killing off all the healers called Phaetyns, Ryn is an optimist and wants adventure in her life. She didn't realize what she was asking for because her life soon became a nightmare.

Her boss, who is like family, holds rebel meetings at the tavern where she works. Ryn isn't part of it but she likes to eavesdrop whenever possible. She, like everyone else, wants to overthrow the king and his powerful Drae who hunts traitors from the sky.

Lord Irrik is a dragon shifter called a Drae who is the Boogeyman of the children's tales. Everyone fears him because of the stories and rumors, some true and some not. He is bound to the king by a blood oath so he carries out every monstrous order the king commands him to do. He has no choice.

Ryn meets Lord Irrik one night when she's trying to make it home before curfew. From there, things just went terribly wrong. She ended up being taken to the king where everyone knows that once you go in to the palace, you never come out again.

I'm going to go off subject a little here and tell about something that might be not be relevant or contribute to the book review or summary but might hit a chord with other reviewers.

I take lots of notes when reading books. It helps me with my reviews and I go back into them to refresh myself if it has been a while in between one book and the next book of the series. Recently, I've been using voice to text to record the notes and I kept cracking up at what was actually being written in the notes. The program never adjusted to “Lord Irrick” and it was never consistent with what it thought it heard. Iam not sure if it is the way I pronounce things or what but the results were annoyingly funny. It wrote “Lord Eric” most of the time but it also wrote then “Lori Rick”, “lore ick”, and “Laura Rock”. I kept on having to correct it which took more time than it was worth.

Back to the actual book review.

Ryn was easy to like except that she was easily fooled and made a lot of wrong assumptions and conclusions about things that seemed obvious to me which caused her a lot of hardships she could have avoided.

I am getting ready to download the next book in the series.… (més)

This book drove me absolutely insane at times. Ryn and Tyrrik were trying to unite the kingdoms against the Drae emperor yet they didn't seem like they were in any hurry and sometimes they were just idiots, not adding two and two to see what was right before their eyes. It was annoying as hell.

At one point, near the end, things happened so strangely that I thought I had missed something so I backed up and read from the beginning of the chapter. Then I thought maybe she was dreaming or Draedyn was controlling her mind but that wasn't the case. It made no sense. I can't say what it was because it might spoil the book but it was vague and out of character.

I did like Ryn and Tyrrik's characters. I liked that she had a sense of humor and she did embarrassing things sometimes. I thought Tyrrik was the ultimate man. He lived for Ryn and always protected her.

Overall, the book was good. It just had a few blemishes that I had a hard time getting through.… (més)