Fire

Kristen Cashore

Hachette

Otago Daily Times, 2009

Fire by Kristin Cashore is set in a midaeval kingdom known as the Dells.  Here ‘normal’ animals coexist with rainbow-coloured monster species, distinguishable by their unnatural colouring and extraordinary loveliness. Fire is the only living human monster in the Dells, living as unobtrusively as possible in a secluded holding far from the King’s city. 

Her father, Cansrell, was once the power behind the throne, and she has inherited both his monsterous beauty and ability to enter people’s minds, but memories of his depravity have left Fire unwilling to use her own talents.  When civil war threatens to tear the kingdom apart, Fire is summoned to the Court and asked to help the new king defeat his enemies.

Fearing personal corruption and faced with open hostility from the Commander of the King’s army, Prince Brigan, she initially refuses. Over time, however, Fire begins to care about the city and the members of the court, and eventually finds herself personally involved in the fight to save the Dells. 

While much of this novel is predictable, the moral questions Fire wrestles with add an interesting dimension to the standard fantasy plot, and at least one of her choices surprised me.  As a stand-alone story this novel works well enough, but a brief incursion from by a character probably from an earlier work and the open-ended finale makes me suspect it is part of a longer series.