D. E. Carlson

After reading and loving To Bind Fire I immediately dove into Iris’s next adventure and enjoyed it almost as much as the first book.

There were aspects and characters of the book that made it even more compelling to me, but there were others that left me a bit confused and frustrated and I want to start with those.

While I completely understood Iris’s passiveness in book 1, it felt like when she started to take things into her own hands at the end of To Bind Fire, she fell back into being more of a puppet to the ideas and will of others and I didn’t like it. After all she went through she ought to have been more vigilant in my opinion. Instead it seemed like she was very naive in her decisions who to trust, never hiding her intentions if she even had them. I couldn’t really understand her actions or better reactions. When it seems like she might finally have some sort of plan, she doesn’t act on it or is very easily distracted by other people who are pretty clearly standing on the wrong side.

— The following paragraphs contain mild spoilers in form of questions about characters and background —

I didn’t quite get the tests or trials the fire demon put her through and why she immediately complies. In book 1 she had already communed with El, she had the book of El and she definitely knew the fire demon was all that is evil. Yet she is easily manipulated and we never even see one prayer to ask for El’s guidance.

I still don’t really understand how this whole song magic is supposed to work and while the fire demon - and others - remind Iris repeatedly that she needs help to control her fire, it seemed to me like she had it totally under control in these games of his.

Also - why could the fire demon sometimes “switch” into his young, immortal and powerful form while mostly being confined to a fragile, almost dead shell?

We also get glimpses of the resistance, but we still don’t really know what their real goal is, how they operate or why there is no one trying to help or guide Iris.

What happened to Tabin and Mila? We only see a tiny glimpse into their lives without Iris and while I wasn’t sure that Tabin would turn out to be “the real love interest”, I didn’t expect two main characters of the first book to vanish without us knowing what they were up to.

There are a lot of characters and with a lot of them I didn’t know which role they played. Were they only short acquaintances passing by or did they play a major role in Iris’s journey? What is the background of these people like what is really the story of Captain Veldan or more importantly Jacin? I had a lot of inklings and questions about him in book 1, his appearances in this book didn’t really clear things up.

How was Iris supposed to give her note to someone who is never there? Why is this plot thread never really played out? What importance did Allsander have? While I still haven’t figured this character out, the thought that Iris trusted him even for one second is beyond my understanding and after she thinks she has found out his plot against her, she doesn’t use this to her advantage but - again - lets him see all her cards.

— end of spoilers (I hope) —

Like I said in my review for To Bind Fire there were a lot of unanswered questions, but there were even more in this book and it added to my confusion. Even though I know that there are three other books planned where we hopefully find answers and To Bind Court ended on a note that led me to expect a great redemption arc for Iris, I wished there were more things explained in this book and more character development. I empathized a lot with Iris in book 1, in this book I have to admit I became a bit frustrated by her lack of common sense and action.

While there are obviously a lot of open questions at least for me, I still understand this is only book 2 of 5 in the Empire of Ash series, so the book should not answer everything or else there wouldn’t be the need for a sequel. And since I am still very intrigued to read the following books, I decided on a 4,5 star rating.

But now to the parts that were equally amazing in book 2 or even improved in my opinion.

Prince Besaun was a bit pale in book 1. In book 2 his character becomes more fleshed out. I loved his chapters and even though I think it took him a bit long to question his mother and the fire empire in general, I loved his character growth and how he started to become his own person.

Casandra, while being imprisoned most of the book, also grew a lot as a character, especially if you have read the novella Casandra’s Dragon. She was so brave and still funny and fierce and I loved how her relationship with Besaun had so little drama - of course despite the extreme drama they found themselves in. When Besaun finally joined the right side, there was no back and forth between them. They fought together for good and accepted each other as they were.

The pacing was faster than in book 1 and there was a lot of action, politics, intrigue and battle scenes. While this added suspense and tension to the story, the killing scenes were sometimes quite gruesome and I really didn’t like how Casandra and Besaun grinned at each other after one specific scene.

The world building remains awesome and the faith elements - even though I wished Iris would have called out to El at least once in her time of trial - stay strong and there were some very powerful scenes.

As a side note - I would love to have a map with all the lands and bloodlines, to give me a better understanding, and a family tree of the fire empire because of all these different characters it was sometimes confusing to understand the succession to the throne and the lineage in general.

All the remaining questions aside, I enjoyed the book a lot, definitely recommend it and can’t wait for book 3 and Iris’s journey to continue - and maybe meet Tabi and Mila again…

* Thank you to the author for letting me read an advanced copy of this book. I leave this review voluntarily and the expressed opinions are my own.… (mehr)

I have to admit, when I saw a Christian YA Fantasy where the main character shares my name, I kind of had to read it.

Add a beautiful cover, great worldbuilding and flawed but loveable characters and I’m sold.

I really enjoyed this book and was curious as to what it would lead. I have to say I didn’t always understand the world we see here, nor the magic system or the religion. But a lot of things became clearer as the story progressed. Not everything was explained, which is understandable, since this is the first book in the Empire of Ash and Song series which will include five novels and at least one novella, if I’m rightly informed. So I don’t consider this a flaw of the book but something that I expect to be explored more when Iris’s adventure continues.

Iris is thrown into a completely new situation, realizes she knows next to nothing about the world she lives in and has to rely on the words of others as she begins her journey. She is rather passive, shy and scared and follows the lead of her new friends Tabin and Mila. I didn’t mind her passiveness, since I thought it fitting for a 15 year old girl who just experienced major loss and trauma and has her world turned upside down.

I had quite a few questions about other characters like Tabin, Jacin or the Dal-Ishnadi because different scenes and even Iris’s thoughts, feelings and actions towards them gave me kind of mixed signals, so I still haven’t figured the different characters out and will hopefully learn more about them in the coming novels.

Like other people stated, the different folks or nations reminded me of the elements in The Last Airbender, even though it’s obviously not completely transferable, if not alone because there are four elements in The Last Airbender and 5 bloodlines in To Bind Fire. Somehow there are humanlike creatures that fit none of these five groups - Dragonbloods, Skybloods, Firebloods, Creaturebloods, Earthbloods - and I didn’t fully understand how they fit in this world, created by El.

I did love this world, descriptions of landscapes and surroundings, the mostly slow pacing (even though there were some faster paced scenes, danger and adventure) and how we learned new things alongside the main character. All that allowed me to really dive into the story and experience the new reality together with Iris. I also appreciated the faith elements and biblical themes that were woven into the story and that one basically has to choose between right and wrong, good and evil and that this fallen world no longer lives in Harmony because of the disunity between the people, but let Khaoss infiltrate their world.

“El created us, and we communed freely with Him. He gave each bloodline the power to control a piece of his world and commanded we work together to ensure Harmony.”

Quite uninteresting for every other reader but funny enough for me - not only do I share my first name with the main character but her mother was called Maya, which is my middle name, two yarnbulls are called Bennie and Bonnie, which were the names of my dearly loved bunnies and my younger daughter’s name (which I don’t share online) is the shortened version of an important name in the companion novella Casandra’s Dragon.

But even without these personally intriguing coincidences I really enjoyed To Bind Fire and can’t wait to continue Iris’s, Tabin’s, Besaun’s and Casandra’s story and will hopefully get a few more answers about this fascinating world Carlson created.

* Thank you to the author for letting me read an advanced copy of this book. I leave this review voluntarily and the expressed opinions are my own.… (mehr)