Fireborne

The Aurelian Cycle, Book 1

By: Rosaria Munda

Narrated by: Christian Coulson, Candice Moll, Steve West

"One of fantasy’s best series."—Booklist, starred review

Game of Thrones meets Fourth Wing in a debut young adult fantasy that's full of rivalry, romance . . . and dragons.

Annie and Lee were just children when a brutal revolution changed their world, giving everyone—even the lowborn—a chance to test into the governing class of dragonriders.

Now they are both rising stars in the new regime, despite backgrounds that couldn't be more different. Annie's lowborn family was executed by dragonfire, while Lee's aristocratic family was murdered by revolutionaries. Growing up in the same orphanage forged their friendship, and seven years of training have made them rivals for the top position in the dragonriding fleet.

But everything changes when survivors from the old regime surface, bent on reclaiming the city.

With war on the horizon and his relationship with Annie changing fast, Lee must choose to kill the only family he has left or to betray everything he's come to believe in. And Annie must decide whether to protect the boy she loves . . . or step up to be the champion her city needs.

From debut author Rosaria Munda comes a gripping adventure that calls into question which matters most: the family you were born into, or the one you've chosen.

©2019 Rosaria Munda (P)2019 Listening Library

Critic reviews

★ ★ ★ ★ Four Starred Reviews!

A 2019 Cybils Award Winner

An Illinois Reads 2020 Selection

A 2020-2021 Maine Student Book Award Selection

An AudioFile Magazine Earphones Award Winner

★ "This series opener thrills with dragon action, from aerial tournaments to wartime battles . . . a near-perfect work of high fantasy with wide appeal."—Booklist, starred review

★ "From the beginning, this book pulls readers in . . . full of drama, emotional turmoil, and high stakes."—Kirkus, starred review

★ "Thought-provoking and full of social and political intrigue.”—School Library Journal, starred review

This book just didn’t do anything for me

I watched a book review that said this series was better than the fourth wing series. I wish I could say that was true but so far I’m on the third book and I can barely finish it. The love story is mediocre. The whole book is drawn out and I wish I didn’t, waste my credits on it. With that said the narrations are good. The voices are good. It’s just the story for me. Don’t waste your time.

3.5 stars

Interesting storyline and plot, but the writing style and teen angst was a bit much for me.

A Whirlwind of a Book that had me HOOKED

I loved this so much that I didn't want to get to the end! It was Game of Thrones meets Throne of Glass meets Eragon in this fast paced read. I loved the struggles and the heartaches that Lee and Annie had to go through to get to were they ended up. I just need more!

obsessed!

I read a review that says this book series is comparable to 4th wing. I may have liked this series even better!

All the Feels!

Get ready for highly relatable characters who make logical decisions and face conflicts that are absolutely heartwrenching. The moral dilemmas made it nearly impossible to put the book down, and I got way too attached to the characters. This book made me cry more than any book has in years. I’ve never seen an author build tension and stakes so perfectly. OH and the audiobook production is brilliant. All the main characters are voiced perfectly.

In response to the review stating that it’s too violent and they’re “too young” to be military leaders, the reasoning for this was explained very well in the story. As an Afghanistan veteran, I found the most heartbreaking and realistic part of the story to be the conflict between the characters’ humanity and their sworn duty to protect their nation. This, and the brilliant characterization, sets the Aurelian Cycle far above other titles in its genre.

A different kind of dragon story

While slow to get my interest, once the story line picked up a little (about half way through the book honestly!) I truly enjoyed it

Loved it

Great book! I consumed it and struggled to put it down. Perfect blend of political, fantasy, and drama. Looking forward to starting book 2 asap.

Loved it all

I found these books after reading the Fourth Wing/ Iron Flame books. Wasn’t expecting to like them as much as those, but I fell in love. Didn’t want the series to end. Also, it’s normally taken me awhile to get into the voices for the other audiobooks I’ve listened to, but I immediately enjoyed Lee & Annie’s voice actors. I could listen to “Annie’s” voice all day. Highly recommend this whole series. I got lost in this world and it’ll be hard to find another one I love as much as this.

A fun read with dragons!

This one was gooood! I loved the dragons, the class system / politics, and the dynamic relationships between the characters. This is probably the first book I have read where there were truly two full POVs and neither were more important than the other to the storyline - was an adjustment for me, but I was pleasantly surprised! This one is definitely fantasy with a romantic subplot. Overall, a fun read that will leave you interested for more.

For my audiobook friends: each POV has a different narrator, both were very good but was a little lost on occasion when voicing some of the other characters

Story: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️.5
Narration: 🎧 🎧 🎧 .5
Spice: 0

Left me Excited for More!

This was such a great read! I had heard many good things about the book series but I was a little reluctant to start it, just because I hadn't really heard much about what it was about, just that it was good.

I'd say this was a YA book, because of the age of the characters, but the themes it explored were quite mature. This book is about the rise up of a lower class regime over a cruel ruling class regime and how some of the citizens are adjusting to the new paradigm shift...all on a dragon's back. ;)

It's a fun adventure filled with great characters. There are some tropes that some might find annoying but I think they are done well here. There's a wee bit of miscommunication trope, but not in that annoying way where the characters just seem not to talk to each other because the writer isn't ready for them too. There's a little bit of a love triangle thing going on here but not in the very obvious, upsetting way where the author is setting up one pairing over the other and it's totally obvious what choice the characters should be making. It's very subtle because the romance aspect is not the main focus at all. Overall, I really enjoyed it.

Edit: I have recently reread the book after about a year in preparation for reading the next two. I was surprised to find that I hadn't noticed a few flaws the first time around, but they were glaring this time. Firstly, the author does a lot of telling rather than showing. There is very little to no dialogue between the characters in places. There are a lot of places where the characters say: So I told him about this... instead of inserting dialogue between the characters. This made everyone feel very removed from each other. Secondly, the drama intended for certain scenes would have been appropriately heightened if the characters would have spoken to each other, so not only did they seem distant but it felt like some opportunities for the reader to feel the drama of a scene was removed. It was much harder to get into the book this time and much harder to remember why I liked it so much before. But this story is far more plot-driven than character-driven, which is not normally my style. It was still an interesting world and plot, but I wish the characters were more active and spoke more.