On Fire's Wings (2004)

I love when a fantasy book is done right. Golden builds worlds so clearly that you can see, feel and taste them. I felt like I was in the desert, I felt the hot sand and smelled the spicy air! The characters were beautiful and the story was inspiring, tragic and heartbreaking all at the same time. I loved reading as relationships grew and as villians were evolved before my eyes. This book was wonderful! ( )

Summary: Kevla Bai-sha was born the daughter of a prostitue - a person without caste or clan in a society where those two things define most of a person's life. One day, she is recognized in the market by her father, who is the chieftan of one of the most powerful clans in the whole of the desert nation of Arukan. He takes pity on her, and takes her into his house as a servant, without revealing to her the secret of her birth. But Kevla has secrets of her own, for beginning at puberty she starts having terrifying dreams of the Great Dragon - the keeper of Arukani morality - and of a looming darkness that threatens to swallow the world. She keeps these dreams to herself, lest she be thought demon-cursed, and there is only one person she can confide in: her half-brother, Jashemi, who has had strange dreams of his own. As they grow up together, the dreams become more and more powerful, and the worries of daily life are nothing compared to the darkness surrounding Kevla and Jashemi... and the destiny that binds them both to fight it.

Review: It was only after I finished this book that I realized that Luna Books was an imprint of Harlequin, but that fact helped clarify a lot of my reaction to it. It's not a romance per se - although a love story does play a central role, there's only one sex scene (more on that later), and I would never place it next to more "traditional" bodice-rippers. But, at the same time, it didn't quite feel the way I expect epic fantasy to feel... which is vague, I know, but I can't quite put my finger on what specifically I had a problem with.

Part of it was certainly the writing. It felt like Golden was shooting for "epic" and "mythic" in her tone, but landed instead somewhere between "overly-straightforward" and "somewhat stilted." There's a lot of telling rather than showing, and too much time was spent transcribing every detail of various characters' inner monologues. On the other hand, while I wasn't crazy about the style used to portray them, the characters were well-done: complex, interesting, and for the most part sympathetic.

The story itself was also interesting enough to keep me reading. The whole "reborn warriors called from obscurity to save the world in its last hour of peril" theme has been done before (Wheel of Time, anyone?), but Golden uses it well. Starting with a killer prologue - of the last time the Dancers were called, a time that the Shadow won - Golden builds enough detail into her world and its mythology to keep things intriguing, and moving along at a good pace.

But, there's that niggling issue of the sex scene. Sex in fiction, even graphic sex in fiction, does not bother me. That's not my problem. My problem is that it wasn't just a sex scene, it was incest. And, more to the point, it was incest written in such a way that the scene was supposed to feel tender and romantic, not taboo-violating and icky, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. If you're going to have an incest storyline in your book, I feel like it needs to have a purpose, needs to say something about your characters that can't be said in any other way. And while Golden does clearly have a reason for why she crossed that line, it didn't feel like enough to justify the scene as written... I felt like there should have been another way to make that same point that would have been less off-putting to readers.

But, that's just one scene, and overall, this book was entertaining enough. It's an interesting story, with some nice characterizations, although it felt like there was too much laid out on the surface, with not enough going on underneath. 3 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: I doubt that I'll be actively seeking out the sequel, In Stone's Clasp, although I probably wouldn't be adverse to reading it if someone handed it to me. On Fire's Wings would probably be best for folks who like their fantasy adventure stories uncomplicated and tinged with a heavy dose of (unknowingly incestuous) romance. ( )

http://community.eharlequin.com/.4a84d258 ( )

Well developed culture and story line! Good story...but got boring. ( )

Not a bad read, but not the best book I've read either. Set in a desert town, this is the story of Kevla who was born an outcaste in a world where caste matters. When her father finds her he takes her from the world she knows to a new world in his household where he is the prince. She doesn't know her relationship with him and finds herself strangely attracted to his son.

This read like a first novel and I wasn't completely unhappy with that but there were some things that dragged and made me wonder about an editor and some of the angst went on a little too long but it wasn't truly bad just sometimes she seemed to try a little to hard to be edgy and different. Not hunting up the next book in the series but wouldn't reject it if I got my hands on it. ( )