Main Character: Ashline Wilde
Love Interest: Colt Halliday
Series: Wildefire Series, Book 1
Author: Website|Facebook|Twitter|Goodreads
Every flame begins with a spark.Ashline Wilde is having a rough sophomore year. She’s struggling to find her place as the only Polynesian girl in school, her boyfriend just cheated on her, and now her runaway sister, Eve, has decided to barge back into her life. When Eve’s violent behavior escalates and she does the unthinkable, Ash transfers to a remote private school nestled in California’s redwoods, hoping to put the tragedy behind her.
But her fresh start at Blackwood Academy doesn’t go as planned. Just as Ash is beginning to enjoy the perks of her new school—being captain of the tennis team, a steamy romance with a hot, local park ranger—Ash discovers that a group of gods and goddesses have mysteriously enrolled at Blackwood…and she’s one of them. To make matters worse, Eve has resurfaced to haunt Ash, and she’s got some strange abilities of her own.
With a war between the gods looming over campus, Ash must master the new fire smoldering within before she clashes with her sister one more time… And when warm and cold fronts collide, there’s guaranteed to be a storm.
I went into this book thinking that I was going to absolutely love it right from the very beginning. Why did I think this? Because the main character is a Polynesian volcano goddess and I’m a Polynesian Princess (at least that’s what my Mom and Dad used to call me when I was little, ha!). I did end up enjoying the heck out of this book and am totally thirsty for the second book already, it took me a long time to get through this book.
The beginning of this book dragged but when the action took off, it really took off. Throughout the book, Ashline is described as having clay colored skin (what the heck is that? I kept picturing the clay from pottery class and that is not at all pretty) and she was always just a Polynesian girl. The islander. What island is she from exactly? Is she Tahitian? Samoan? Tongan? I was curious because I’m Polynesian but I don’t go around saying I’m Polynesian. I’m Samoan. My parents are from Samoa and that’s why we’re Polynesian but with Ash, she was just Polynesian. I guess she’d be Hawaiian since she’s Pele and Pele is the Hawaiian fire goddess but whatever, that’s just what was going through my head when I was reading.
Moving along, Ash is sent to a boarding school in Northern California when her psycho monster of a sister kills a girl right in front of Ash and freaks Ash the hell out. So she’s in this new school and she’s trying to keep a low profile but she comes to find that there are others out there just like her, at the very school that she was sent to. Others like her, in the sense where they have powers or special abilities, if you will.
She doesn’t necessarily have any powers, not yet anyway but there’s something supernatural about her. She forms a little group of friends that I came to love over the course of the book. Raja, Rolfe, Ade and Lily. Each of them are of the deity variety (a Norse God, an Egyptian goddess of death, etc…) and they’re each given a task to help save the world. Nobody can know what the others task is but Ash’s task is to kill the trickster. That task might have been written in hieroglyphics as far as Ash was concerned because she didn’t know who the trickster was and she still didn’t know what her powers were. As far as she was concerned, she didn’t have any special powers, not like the others.
Of the whole lot of them, I think I liked Rolfe the best. I’m drawn more to the protectors and the way that he was throughout the book proved that he was a protector and I adored him. I’m kind of mad at you Mr. Knight right now but not enough to curse you or anything, you still did a wonderful job with this story. I’m just, why? WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DO IT? Oh well, I’m sure I’ll forgive you someday, ;P.
Once the action started, the book got really good. I couldn’t read it fast enough. So many things were popping off, so many questions were forming in my head and I ate it all up. Ashline’s voice was easy to follow and even though she gave new meaning to the word stubborn and hot headed, I still enjoyed her character.
Eve, on the other hand. I wanted to kill her from the moment she stepped into the picture. She got on my hot damn nerves every time she came around and I guess she did her job well then being the villain and everything. The way that everything came together closed some doors but that ending knocked me on my ass because I wasn’t expecting that at all. I’m more than a little anxious for the next book and I’m kind of bummed that it’s not coming out until next year.
This book is wild ride and I’m glad that I stuck with it. Seeing how everything fell apart and then came together made for a very entertaining read and I would definitely recommend this book to lovers of YA paranormal fiction. It’s full of good.
..and that’s your scoop!
Book cover and blurb credit: http://barnesandnoble.com
Rolfe was my favorite too!!! I think I reread THAT part a few times to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, lol.
I’m glad you ended up enjoying it! 😀
@Stephanie: ME TOO! My heart broke and then raced at the ending. Holy crap, I can’t believe we have to wait until next year to see what happens next. I need to know!