Spindle Fire by Lexa Hillyer | Book Review
I have given this book for free for a honest review.
A kingdom burns. A princess
sleeps. This is no fairy tale.
It all started with the burning of the spindles.
No.
It all started with a curse…
Half sisters Isabelle and Aurora are polar opposites: Isabelle is the king’s headstrong illegitimate daughter, whose sight was tithed by faeries; Aurora, beautiful and sheltered, was tithed her sense of touch and her voice on the same day. Despite their differences, the sisters have always been extremely close.
And then everything changes, with a single drop of Aurora’s blood—and a sleep so deep it cannot be broken.
As the faerie queen and her army of Vultures prepare to march, Isabelle must race to find a prince who can awaken her sister with the kiss of true love and seal their two kingdoms in an alliance against the queen.
Isabelle crosses land and sea; unearthly, thorny vines rise up the palace walls; and whispers of revolt travel in the ashes on the wind. The kingdom falls to ruin under layers of snow. Meanwhile, Aurora wakes up in a strange and enchanted world, where a mysterious hunter may be the secret to her escape…or the reason for her to stay.
It all started with the burning of the spindles.
No.
It all started with a curse…
Half sisters Isabelle and Aurora are polar opposites: Isabelle is the king’s headstrong illegitimate daughter, whose sight was tithed by faeries; Aurora, beautiful and sheltered, was tithed her sense of touch and her voice on the same day. Despite their differences, the sisters have always been extremely close.
And then everything changes, with a single drop of Aurora’s blood—and a sleep so deep it cannot be broken.
As the faerie queen and her army of Vultures prepare to march, Isabelle must race to find a prince who can awaken her sister with the kiss of true love and seal their two kingdoms in an alliance against the queen.
Isabelle crosses land and sea; unearthly, thorny vines rise up the palace walls; and whispers of revolt travel in the ashes on the wind. The kingdom falls to ruin under layers of snow. Meanwhile, Aurora wakes up in a strange and enchanted world, where a mysterious hunter may be the secret to her escape…or the reason for her to stay.
---
This is a retelling of the classic tale of The Sleeping
Beauty and like every retelling it has a twist to it. In this case
there Aurora has a sister and there is more information as to why she got
cursed during.
This book was interesting, I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it
I was kinda in the middle.
One of my favorite things is the Hillyer gives background story
to the all fairy and the magic in the world and you understand why Malfleur is
‘evil’. There is so much world building around the fae, the folklore, and
history. It was what made the book unique.
Unfortunately, this story felt like a middle grade rather than
YA ( I actually had to email the book provided to double check Spindle Fire was
a YA). Sometimes I felt that everything was too simply, with not enough UNF,
especially the first half of the story. I felt like too many things were
happening too quickly ay the beginning that I couldn’t keep up with all the
events. Once the plot slowed down the story as a whole started to make more
sense to me.
The main characters of the story are Aurora (duh), Isabelle
(Aurora’s blind older sister), Gil (Isabelle’s childhood friend/love interest),
Heath ( Aurora’s love interest ), Will (the prince of the other kingdom who is
also Isabelle’s love interest). Most of these characters didn’t feel very
dimensional, only Isabelle (Isbe) felt whole as a character and Will was almost
there. Aurora, Heath and Gil felt hallow and kinda just there. I hope that in
book two they are fleshed out more.
Throughout the story you read the point of view of multiple
characters, with Aurora and Isbe being the main narrators. Isbe’s point of view
was the most interesting to read because she is blind and the narrative has to
be told through her thoughts and what she hears, smells and feels which is
quite interesting…but sometimes I felt that Isbe could see based on the writing
which felt a little weird since…she’s blind. But it also meant that Hillyer can
paint a picture without usual actual visual words which is pretty big
accomplishment.
Throughout the story I have a general idea what was gonna happen
next and it was kinda disappointing, because nothing really caught me by
surprise. Only two things caught me by surprise in the last 100 pages (which
were the best section of the story).
I still have so many questions! And in desperate need for book
two. I wanna know more about the two fae sister queens (who are very important
to the story and folklore).
The biggest complaint about Spindle Fire is that the
relationship between Aurora and Heath feel kinda forced, nothing felt natural.
AND PLEASE NO LOVE TRIANGLE OMG, I can see it as a possibility but I don’t want
it to happen.
Overall Spindle Fire is quite an enjoyable book, especially if
you like fairy tale re-tellings. I am quite intrigue to see where book two will
take us.
My
Rating: 3.5/5
Goodreads: 4.3/5
Amazon: 3.36/5
Goodreads: 4.3/5
Amazon: 3.36/5
Simply a girl who loves tea, blogs about her ever exciting life and wants to make her dreams come true.
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