Daughter of Fire: Conspiracy of the Dark by Karen Frost is the first book in Frost’s Destiny and Darkness YA fantasy series.
Born in the frozen lands of the Ice Crown, Aeryn knows life is a struggle. Fortunately, she also knows the love and support of her family and townsfolk. The remote location and harsh climate bind the people of Thamir together tightly for survival’s sake. But being so remote, they are cut off from the rest of the kingdom of Ilirya and their only connection is through rotating militia and the very rare visitor. Which is probably for the best. After all, there is no time for politics when every moment is a struggle to survive.
Resigned to follow the path of her forebearers, she is content to merely dream of the possibilities of magic and the tales of the world beyond the Ice Crown. That is until her sixteenth birthday when she discovers magic courses through her veins. And not just any magic…fire magic. The discovery is exhilarating but bears consequences she never could have imagined.
Suddenly thrust into the heart of the Kingdom, Aeryn is forced to train at Windhall University where her horizons are expanded by a variety of new people and experiences. Here she will master the skills necessary to become a War Mage. In the process she meets new friends and Lyse, who maybe could become more than a friend. However, though a War Mage is an illustrious career, it is also a very short one. And to add to the danger of her new role, there is a malicious presence lurking in the darkness. Just when she feels like she is starting to belong somewhere, her world is rocked with a truth that will change everything.
The Characters
Aeryn is a child of winter, born and raised in the harsh environment of the Ice Crown. The unforgiving climate has molded her into a strong and capable young woman, yet the isolation has made her rather naïve. She spends much of the book feeling alone in different scenarios which I think will resonate with many young readers. Her naivety makes her mostly passive, which I think is understandable given her background and lack of world awareness. She does finally start to come into her own near the end of the book instead of being merely a pawn, which was great to see and hopefully continues in the next installment.
There is a plethora of great supporting characters in the book as well such as the friends Aeryn meets at the University, the wise and helpful mentor Firdas, and the boisterous Sir Idris to name a few.
The Writing Style
The writing itself is wonderfully descriptive, poetic at times and vividly expressive at others. There isn’t a ton of action in this book (though I feel it is building for the rest of the series) and most of it is spent introducing Aeryn, her discovery of magic and her introduction into the greater world. As such, the pacing is kind of slow, but the emersion in the world is wonderful escapism. There’s not much romance, if that is your cup of tea, but more is certainly hinted at in the rest of the series.
The Pros And My Favourite Parts
I love the overall premise, the world building and the magic system and I can’t wait to see what happens in the next book in the series. Things were starting to get very interesting near the end of this book in terms of the character progression, machinations, and overall plot, which made me really want to jump into the next one.
Cons And Heads Up
Cliffhanger alert! The story does end with a cliff hanger that leaves you pretty anxious to see what happens next. And again, the pacing is fairly slow as this book feels more like an introduction to the characters and world promising more action as the series progresses.
The Conclusion
Magic, politics, a budding romance, this book has all of that and shows great potential for the rest of the series.
TLDR (too long didn’t read)
Great premise, cool world with fire magic, looming war and budding attraction that ends with a cliffhanger but looks like the beginning of a great series.
Excerpt from Daughter of Fire: Conspiracy of the Dark by Karen Frost
Stories, when told by a skillful storyteller, are perfect circles: they begin, they end, the lights go out, the curtains close, the puppets slump lifelessly. But the lives of real people aren’t neat parables in which the lesson is learned, the villain slain, the hero triumphant. They have no defined shape. They are messy. In real life, no one knows how the story will end. Only the gods know, and they’re not telling.
Everyone has a story: the circle of their life beginning with their birth and ending with their death. My story begins in a small, remote village called Thamir, located on the furthest northwestern border of the kingdom of Ilirya. It is hard to live somewhere and not take on the characteristics of that place. Thamir was frozen, isolated, and fierce. It had to fight every day against the cold threatening to swallow it whole. Like a weed growing tenaciously on the side of a cliff, it defied nature’s attempts to smother it and if it didn’t thrive, at least it didn’t die. But then, that’s how life is; it refuses to give up even when the odds seem hopelessly against it.
Thamir was one of hundreds of small villages that lined the kingdom’s northern border, each a small island unto itself with little contact with the rest of the outside world. This string of villages was called the Ice Crown. Life in the Ice Crown was brutal. Even on the warmest summer night, the temperature could drop low enough to freeze water. In winter, death stalked the living relentlessly, killing remorselessly through cold or starvation. Because of how we lived and the people into which our environment made us, my father, Jax, used to say, “There are two types of people in this world: those from the Ice Crown, and everyone else.”
…my future was inevitably rooted in Thamir’s soil: I would become a trapper like the women in my family before me. I would live with my parents until the day I married and moved into a house of my own. This was how it had always been for the women of my village and how it would surely be for me as well. It was so simple it required no thought, no emotion. Why dream about a future that cannot be? My brothers Kem and Kyan and I were born children of the Ice Crown, and we would die children of the Ice Crown. Or at least, I thought so.
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Series
Daughter of Fire: Conspiracy of the Dark
Daughter of Fire: The Darkness Rising
Daughter of Fire: Destiny’s Choice
Bits and Bobs
- ISBN number: 9783963242670
- Publisher: Ylva Publishing
- Karen Frost Online
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