#BookReview: Dreams of Fire by Christian Cura

Dreams of Fire (#1) by Christian Cura
Publication Date: December 5th 2019
Genre: Urban Fantasy / Paranormal
pages: 265
Stars:★★★☆☆

Meet Kara Hartman, a young painter living and working in D.C. She would love to let you believe she is just an ordinary young woman with a dream of sharing her art with the world. But she is hiding an astonishing secret: Kara can wield magic, the most powerful force in the universe. Traumatized by the loss of her brother, she wants nothing more to do with magic. But when an old foe resurfaces, hellbent on destroying all that she loves, Kara has no choice but to embrace the only power that can stop her.

*** Note: I received e-copy this book from the author, in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to author. ***

Dreams of Fire was interesting paranormal, urban fantasy that revolved around Kara Hartman who forsaken her magic after tragedy. It was bout loss, vengeance, friendship, love and magic.

I have mixed feeling for this. Some things were good while some I didn’t like. But first let me tell you what was in the book and what I liked.

The book started with Kara visiting her ex-best friend, Charlotte, at Canadian prison stronghold for rogue mystic looking for closure after the tragedy too painful to bear. But Charlotte was drowned in rage, threatened Kara and vowed to exert vengeance by killing her and all her loved ones. After a year, Kara was living a normal non-magical life living her dream of famous painter. Life was peaceful and filled with love after she met a charming demon hunter- Selene. But when premeditated plan freed all rogue mystics and Charlotte along with them from Canadian prison, she found herself forced back to life of magic and Selene and her loved ones’ life was at stake.

What happened between charlotte and Kara all those years ago, why Charlotte wanted to destroy her, would Kara embrace her power and magic to save her loved one and world from the madness of Charlotte?

It was interesting to find answers. Book was third person narrative. Long chapters were broken by multiple POV and scenes alternating from Kara’s life at DC and Canadian Prison.

Kara’s life at DC told about her routine, her paints and how world and people inspired her, how she met Selene and how their relationship evolved. While John (Kara’s elder brother who was warden at prison) and narration by different characters at Canadian prison told about how prison worked, how they trained new enforcers (mystic police) and how prism stripping rouge mystics’ magic worked. This also narrated how the plan that freed prisoners was executed, by who and why.

I liked the introduction to characters. Kara was smart and developed character. She had her inner conflict due to loss and tragedy but on meeting Selene she saw the magic from her view and started to come out of the shell she formed around her. Selene was my most favorite character in the book. She was fiery, fierce and kick-ass demon hunter. She too had hard life and past but it was not revealed much in this book.

I loved bond and relationship between this two. This was my first book with F/F romance. I liked it and would love to read books featuring F/F relationship. This duo was fantastic in battle. I wouldn’t mess with them. Their getting-to-know-each-other conversations was not that extraordinary but it revealed more about their family, childhood and their past.

John was interesting character. I wish I could know him better. We get to know him and his friends Amelia, Rachel, and Marcus in pieces but not that much detail.

The world was filled with necromancers, magic wielders, demons, spells, and demon slayers. Magic was no secret, both paranormal and non-paranormal lived together. Action scenes were well written. I liked all of them and quite enjoyed them. I liked the turns in the story but I could see most of them quite early. I was just waiting for when and how. What I loved most was magic, and powers of characters, magical technology at prison and Kara and Charlotte’s back story.

Climax was filled with tension and action. End was also good. Despite some issues that needed improvement, I found myself wanting to know what happens next.

Why 3 Stars-

First, I don’t like unnecessary sentences and there were many here, like, “They finished their lunch with full stomach and collected their plates.” You get what I’m talking about. 2 or 3 sentences can be cut short to 1. It just dragged the story.

There are two kind of fantasy descriptive world and get to know the world as you read the story. Here we are just plunged into the story and figure the world yourself with surface information. It was not deep or described and because of that I kept questioning ‘Am I reading first book in series or second!’

Around 50% writing and plot got little better but then there came another issue. After the prison break, Selene was telling about her demon hunting adventure to Kara over dinner that she said happened ‘today’, but that scene actually happened and was described in detail before prison break. So I got confused here. All the events were titled under ‘present’ so the timeline was not aligning nicely and this chat and repeated adventure just confused me and kept me thinking what was happening when. It would have make sense, if the day or date were mentioned in the titled.

Concept was really good and promising, no doubt there, but I didn’t like the execution.

Overall, it was interesting, enjoyable and really promising urban fantasy but I had some issue that kept me from enjoying it completely.

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Let’s discuss!

What do you think about the book and review?
Have you read this book already?
Have read a book where normal and paranormal being lived together without fearing the powers of other?

Happy Reading!!

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