I have given this book for free for an 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.
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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 o
n 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
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