Blog Tour: Review & Giveaway- Into the Fire

Title: Into the Fire
Author: Ashelyn Drake
Release date: September 9th, 2014
Publisher: Month9books, LLC
Source: Chapter by Chapter Book Tours


Summary from Goodreads:
Seventeen-year-old Cara Tillman’s life is a perfectly normal one until Logan Schmidt moves to Ashlan Falls. Cara is inexplicably drawn to him, but she’s not exactly complaining. Logan’s like no boy she’s ever met, and he brings out a side of Cara that she isn’t used to. As the two get closer, everything is nearly perfect, and Cara looks forward to the future.

But Cara isn’t a normal girl. She’s a member of a small group of people descended from the mythical phoenix bird, and her time is running out. Rebirth is nearing, which means she’ll forget her life up to this point—she’ll forget Logan and everything they mean to one another.. But that may be the least of Cara’s problems.

A phoenix hunter is on the loose, and he’s determined to put an end to the lives of people like Cara and her family, once and for all.

Buy it now on Amazon | BN | Kobo | Chapters Indigo! | TBD | iBooks

About the Author:
Ashelyn Drake is a New Adult and Young Adult romance author. While it’s rare for her not to have either a book in hand or her fingers flying across a laptop, she also enjoys spending time with her family. She believes you are never too old to enjoy a good swing set and there’s never a bad time for some dark chocolate. She is represented by Sarah Negovetich of Corvisiero Literary Agency.
Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

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Review:

★★★ ★

Three and a half stars.

I was really excited when I learned about this book, because I have never read a book that offers such a being as human phoenixes. I'm a sucker for all things that are mythology related, and knew this was one that I needed to read. Overall, it was a solid story that I would definitely recommend to fans of YA fantasy/mythology stories.

The book follows Cara, a girl who is approaching "the change", the point where she will be reborn and forget almost everything about who she was in order to start anew, as well as Logan, a city boy who has just moved to the falls and definitely does not want to be a part of the small town scene. The book effectively alternates between both of their POVs to give a better, more rounded sense of the story. Each voice was different to reflect the different characters, which is a huge plus since not all writers are able to differentiate their characters well. That being said, I never really felt attached to these characters. They weren't badly written, but they weren't characters that I adored either. It made the rest of the book just a little bit cloudy for me, since I wasn't super involved with their shenanigans.

I also wasn't a huge fan of this whole "imprint" thing. I know that it's a fairly common trope, and to be fair this book has one of the best uses of this insta-love tool, integrating it with the mythology of the phoenixes. It's just something that I personally don't enjoy reading about much, at no real fault of the author.

Now, I did love the phoenix aspects of this book. How terrifying would that be, to be able to count down the days until your body is consumed with fire and you forget everything that makes you who you are? Your friends, your memories, just gone. I think it was a really unique spin on the classic phoenix mythology to make it humans who undergo all of these ordeals. My only comment would be that I wish there was more detail and background on this "race" of people. Other than that, I loved this idea.

This book is a quick read that's well paced. From the beginning few pages, it sucks you in and it only gets more intense as the plot thickens. It's full of drama, but in a really good way. There was never really a dull moment. Even though I wasn't the biggest fan of the characters themselves, I was interested in seeing how everything pushed forward, and eventually concluded, in this book because there was so much happening that I needed to see how it tied up at the end.

Though I had a few small issues with this book, it is one that I would still recommend. It has a unique spin to it that is sure to please fans of YA romance, fantasy, or myth. This was my first experience reading this author's work, and based on this book I would definitely pick up another one of her books. Thanks so much to Chapter by Chapter & Month9Books for my copy in exchange for my honest review.

Giveaway:

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