Review: Kindling by Skye Malone

Book: Kindling
Author: Skye Malone
Series: Kindling Trilogy #1
Publisher: Wildflower Isle

Pages: 386

Source: author (e-copy)

Release: February 7th 2013

Never leave the farm. Never talk about the past. Never bring up the night your mother died or the years you can’t recall.

Remember only that you’re safe.

On her farm in rural Montana, Ashley believes she has a normal life. Sure, her father is gone a lot on business and her childhood is a mystery. But life is good.

Until one night changes everything.

Masked men with inhuman abilities attack her home, burning everything and killing all in their path. A strange boy named Cole comes out of nowhere on a frantic mission to save her life. She’s thrust into a world she never knew existed—a world of dangerous secrets, gun-wielding saviors, and magically adept villains who look just like everyone else.

But the threat doesn’t end there. The people who burned her home are hunting her for a dark and deadly reason, one that goes deep into the past she’s never been able to remember. One that means they will stop at nothing to find her.

One that means Ashley is far more than she appears.

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**I received a free ecopy from the author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion in any way.**

Ah, this was novel was such a breath of fresh air!

Ashley has been living a relatively quiet but content life on her farm with her younger sister, Lily. That is, until one day, unknown men appear and literally destroy everything, and in desperation, Ashley somehow causes an explosion of flames. Now hunted by the government who have been fed lies about what really happened at the farm that night from another group who wants Ashley for their own reasons, Ashley becomes separated from Lily as she scrambles to piece together why she and Lily were targeted, and just who she really is.

I really liked Ashley. She was someone I could very easily relate to, especially with her stages of character development. There were just so many realistic moments and actions: the shock of finding out you're on a murder suspect list, the numbing haze and disbelief that follows, the bewilderment, the frustration of not knowing what's going on and who to trust, everything. I felt everything Ashley felt like my own emotions. There was a perfect balance between Ashley's emotions and her logical thinking; her powers were often ruled by emotion, but her desire to survive was ruled by logic, taking things as simply as possible. I really felt like I was truly experiencing everything Ashley felt alongside her, her emotions like my own.

This book definitely was one that told a story of fortitude, desperation, and courage. And a healthy dose of desperation too, which is always a great driver. The modern setting of the novel really made it easy to relate to: when you're running form the police, you definitely need to be creative, but also realistic. Food, transportation, back alleys, stealing cars, train hopping, everything that comes with being a fugitive--it was all so wonderfully well thought out, and made it such a great high-stakes book. 

"The thing you've got to figure out, kiddo...is you choose who you belong to. Who you want to be. It's not blood or birth. It's a choice."

I enjoyed how that though Ashley was dealing with imminent threats of the police hot on her tail and had an instantaneous goal she needed to achieve that drove her forward, Cole and Lily were of the opposite: they didn't have immediate threats other than avoiding discovery, and had no set goal other than to survive. In a way, they paralleled each other; whereas Ashley had a short-term, but fiery (no pun intended) storyline, Cole and Lily had more of a long-term goal, with larger things heating up near the end related to the bigger plot. It complimented each other very nicely, providing a contrasting--but no less urgent--pacing.

I also enjoyed the society the author created, and how she introduced it to the readers gradually. There weren't any large information dumps at any point, especially since this novel takes place in the modern setting. But elements were all very cleverly integrated throughout the beginning of the novel, things that didn't quite make sense and was slightly offsetting just enough to remember but not to obsess over. History and modern social structures worked wonderfully in the author's favour to laying out the map of the supernatural!

I definitely enjoyed this book. There is nothing like a high-stakes, government chase of suspected (but actually misunderstood) fugitives with unexplainable powers that they're desperately trying to keep hidden from the public world, but may be exploited if they're captured by the government. Plus there's the whole the-government-is-being-manipulated-by-another-force-and-is-thus-just-a-puppet-to-a-bigger-picture aspect. And the writing was absolutely fantastic! So very poetic and lyrical. It just flowed. I very much want to know what happens in the rest of the series, and will definitely be looking into it!