Skyborn: Ignite (Skyborn #1)
Author: Hannah Parker
3 out of 5 stars
After her village is attacked and burned down as a child, Alina finds a new home with her rescuers. Ten years later, she loses her home again when they are attacked by Marauders searching for something. She and her friends, Kiyne and Mara, soon realize that they are looking for a gem that Alina has. They realize that the only way to learn the truth is by going to the Ethereal Realm. What will they discover there, and can they stop the marauders rampage?
This story was fine. There were some good descriptions, and I liked the characters pretty well. There were some times where I was frustrated with Alina, but I though Mara and Kiyne were well written. There were some good descriptions, and the opening, when Alina’s first village is being attacked, drew me in. Although, the story didn’t always keep my attention.
However, there were multiple things that either bothered me or just didn’t make sense. The biggest one is that Alina is afraid of fire due to watching her village burn down, but she dreams of being a dragon rider. To some degree she’s shown to have grown out of it, though she freezes in fear when she goes to help someone who’s trapped in their burning home with the village is attacked. But in general, her actions don’t really match someone who is as terrified of fire as she claims to be. Then the night after the attack she leaves while Mara and Kiyne are asleep to return and check on their village. But she doesn’t wake them to tell them where she’s going or consider that they might be attacked while she’s gone. I was frustrated with Alina because she thinks she can give the gem to the Marauders and that will somehow fix everything. But the damage is already done, and she’d already been told that the gem has a lot of power, so it would probably be worse to give it to them. Also, when Kiyne is introduced, there is no indication that he and Alina are friends and have actually been close friends for years.
Overall, this is just an average story, so I’m rating it 3 out of 5 stars. If you really like fantasy stories with dragons and action, then you might like this book more than I did. And it’s less than 70 pages, so it’s a quick read.
Price through Amazon Kindle: $0.99
Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08421LM15
(I do not benefit from the use of this link.)