Book Reviews

review; wildefire

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Wildefire
by Karsten Knight

Ashline Wilde is having a rough sophomore year. She’s struggling to find her place as the only Polynesian girl in school, her boyfriend just cheated on her, and now her runaway sister, Eve, has decided to barge back into her life. When Eve’s violent behavior escalates and she does the unthinkable, Ash transfers to a remote private school nestled in California’s redwoods, hoping to put the tragedy behind her.

But her fresh start at Blackwood Academy doesn’t go as planned. Just as Ash is beginning to enjoy the perks of her new school – being captain of the tennis team, a steamy romance with a hot, local park ranger – Ash discovers that a group of gods and goddesses have mysteriously enrolled at Blackwood, and she’s one of them. To make matters worse, Eve has resurfaced to haunt Ash, and she’s got some strange abilities of her own.

With a war between the gods looming over campus, Ash must master the new fire smoldering within before she clashes with her sister one more time…

And when warm and cold fronts collide, there’s guaranteed to be a storm.

Review:
I picked this up because the summary at the back seemed interesting – normal girl who turns out to be a reincarnated goddess? And the gods and goddesses wind up in high school together?

Should be fun, right?

And okay, the characters? Varied and fascinating. All different and pretty decently developed.

But the story is slow moving. It feels like nothing substantial happens throughout the novel. There is no real aim – are they trying to figure out why they are back? What are they battling? Who are they battling? What the heck is going on?

I feel like the only answer I got throughout the whole novel was which goddess Ashline was. And while the end of the novel (HOLY SHIT I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING) is enough to make me want to read the next novel, it is not enough for me to be immediately ordering it.

Decent writing, but – there is hardly a story, hardly any conflict, I don’t know who the enemy is and who they are fighting.

I’m Ara, a Southeast Asian writer who someday hopes to have published a novel, and who is currently losing herself in the worlds created by others. I love books and food and television and blogging and I get distracted and sidetracked easily.

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