Ignite

The Phoenix Flame, Book 1

By: Kara Swanson

Narrated by: Emily Lawrence

Can Mara survive in a world where the fire in her veins is worth killing for?

In a frozen wasteland suffocating beneath a dying sun, Mara is a young phoenix raised by her father to explode at his command. He’s the only one who can help her control her fire, and Mara desperately follows his orders to protect their phoenix family from relentless human hunters.

Her sheltered existence is shattered when her family mysteriously vanishes, thrusting Mara into a perilous quest to find them. Along the way, she unravels a devastating truth: her people may not be the innocent victims she's been taught to believe.

When she comes face-to-face with the kindhearted Eli, she begins to wonder if the humans aren’t the monsters she's always feared. What if the greatest danger doesn’t lie in the icy world outside—but in the truth of who Mara really is?

Fire and ice collide in this thrilling tale of a phoenix girl born with the power of a dying sun.

©2024 Kara Swanson (P)2024 Oasis Audio

Fascinating world

This is a haunting, unforgettable journey through a daunting landscape of people groups fighting to survive in a hostile world. Written in a way that lets the reader discover the truth with Mara, a young phoenix tasked with protecting her flock, but destined for so much more. Forced to face the lies she’s been fed since she was a child, she’s confronted with the truth of herself. But how she reacts could tear the world apart -or save it. Grab this one now and discover it all for yourself!

Finding who you are!

This was a very intriguing story. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect but love the character development, the creation of such a vividly real realm, and the plot of the story is uniquely portrayed. It’s beautiful and painful. I am looking forward to a sequel.

Unique

This book exceeded my expectations in a very good way. I was already extremely interested in it based on the description and cover, but the story did not go in any shape or form the way I expected. And that could not have been better for the story. Kara Swanson took this mythical creature and enhanced it in truly brilliant ways. I cannot imagine how someone reimagine an already amazing creature in such a unique way. The story was very unexpected, and no one will ever be able to predict it. This is the first five star read I have had in a long time. Thank you for creating such a perfectly clean read! Looking forward to the conclusion to this duology.

relationship

I love that the author is Christan she is a amzing writer. If you do not like drama or mushy stuff I do not recommend but this is probably one of my favorites.

Wanted to like it

I had heard great things about Kara Swanson. So I had been looking forward to this one. But it wasn’t a hit with me.
The story has good bones, but needed another round or two of editing. Swanson tends to fall back to the same modifiers frequently - “crystalline”, “blistering”, etc. She also has a tendency to restate things four or five different ways. This works once in a while for really profound revelations, but it gets old very quickly when an author does it regularly. This tendency made the writing feel protracted and wearying, and gave the story a dragging feeling.
I am not one of those who complains about “showing” vs “telling”. (IMO, if we applied that complaint to every book, most of the classics would be deemed unworthy, which would be a shame.) However, in this case I do think there was just sooo much internal monologue that it was difficult to get through. (So. Much. Telling.) And most of the main character’s thoughts are self-chastisement, so it was very heavy.
The narrator was hard to sit through. I do wonder if the story might have hit differently with an alternate narrator. She reads with a sense of deep urgency. That’s not typically an issue, but her urgency was continuous. Which means that there was not much nuance. I’m pretty sure there were moments when the main character should have been thoughtful or joyful or sad…but these all came off as just angsty. There was one particular line where she was supposed to be having a sympathetic thought, but these narrator just sounded sarcastic. (*cringe*)
All of that said, I did find myself invested in the general scope of the story. If subsequent books in the series had a different narrator, I might continue following it. But, if Swanson’s writing style continues to be so internally driven, the narrator really needs to be someone with a greater range for portraying a variety of emotions.