A Promise of Fire by Amanda Bouchet

Reading a new book can be a frightening adventure.  I’ve been holding onto A Promise of Fire by Amanda Bouchet for a couple weeks now.  For all intents and purposes the book looks like something I’d delve into immediately, but a few things kept the book on my shelf.  For one, this novel takes place in an alternate universe involving warlords, dragons, fortune tellers, magic, and more.  I’m more of a contemporary romance gal, myself.  I usually worry, with novels like this one, that I will spend too much time trying to understand the unfamiliar world and the plot and romance will fall by the wayside.  Second, the novel is by an author I’ve never heard of before.  I’ve always had difficulty branching out to new authors because I so hate wasting my time on disappointing novels with boring plots and ‘been there, done that’ characters.

That was not the case here.  I cannot stress that enough.  I picked up A Promise of Fire on my lunch break today. Big mistake.  Having to put the book down after 30 minutes was absolute torture.  By that point I was 50 pages in and utterly in love with Soothsayer, Cat Fisa, and the warlord looking to wield her as a powerful weapon. The chemistry between the two of them is undeniable and electric.  Later, when I finally got the chance to continue read, I could literally feel the blood heating in my veins and my heart beating quicker (alright, alright, that might have had something to do with my reading it on an elliptical during my workout, but I attribute at least some of it to the book).

A Promise of Fire follows Cat, a young woman with a horrific past, innumerable enemies, and secrets, so many secrets.  She wants nothing more than to blend into the world around her, disappear, but Griffin has a different plan.  Griffin is looking for a weapon, one that will help keep his family in power, but he never expected someone like Cat to cross his path.  Cat has talents that make her extremely useful, and extremely dangerous.  As Griffin and Cat are forced to spend time together they begin to trust one another, which puts Cat’s life, and Griffin’s in mortal danger.

Even though this novel is set in a time and place known only in Bouchet’s imagination she manages to express that world with incredible detail to her readers.  It never took much effort on my part to understand this foreign environment, strange magic and abilities, or unfamiliar terminology.  That is always the mark of an excellent storyteller.  It was a spectacular, titillating, undeniably realistic story that kept me riveted until the very end and will follow me into my dreams.

I finished the book moments ago and had to write this review immediately.  I am utterly heartbroken, and incredibly impressed, that this book appears to be Amanda Bouchet’s debut novel.  A Promise of Fire is the first in a trilogy, the release dates of the next two novels are set for January and Fall of 2017.  I am , of course, devastated that I have to wait that long, but I suppose it isn’t that long in the scheme of things, and it is worth any amount of time to have this story continue. 

A Promise of Fire comes out August 2016 and I strongly recommend that anyone who wants to read a unique, captivating, and swoon-worthy story pre-order this.  I will be watching Amanda Bouchet closely from here on out and I look forward to having her novels join the ranks on my numerous, but exclusive, bookshelves.  For more information on this amazing novel, please check out Amanda's website: amandabouchet.com

To be updated on new blog posts please like our Facebook  page: https://www.facebook.com/romanticallyinclinedreviews or Follow us in Instagram: @romantically_inclined