Tome Thursday: Firebird

 

Hello everyone!

 

So I have a confession to make.

 

I had another book lined up and ready to go for tonight. In all honesty, I generally have my posting schedule for this blog handled WELL in advance, because I tend to read a lot, and when you read a lot, you have a list so you keep track of everything.

 

This means that, when something shoots into it like a comet from the sky, you need to adjust, and FAST.

 

I was going to go for a short and sweet kind of story, but that one now got bumped to next week.

 

Tonight's choice blazed into life over the course of this weekend when I sat down and was like, alright, fair, let's see what this is all about since people are talking about the sequel all over BookTok at this point.

 

Not that I follow a lot of BookTok, but it sometimes bleeds into my Youtube and Bookstagram, of course.

 

Without further ado, it's time to travel to the past, fling some magic into the air, and pretend that we know what we're doing with this shape-shifting thing.

 

That's Juliette Cross' Firebird for you.

 

Since this is my first book by this author, there are no other links down at the bottom of the page, the way they usually would be.

 

Firebird takes us into the times of Ancient Rome, only it wasn't a she-wolf who nursed Romulus and Remus, but a she-DRAGON, and because of that, the two boys were gifted the power to shift into dragons by proxy. From them then sprang different dragon-shifting houses that still control Rome today, the red and black ones being the most prominent and powerful, though the Emperor is usually a red dragon because, Romulus was a red one.

 

So now you know the basis of this story.

 

You should also know that, in this version of the Medusa myth, Medusa and her sisters were gifted powers by Minerva that would help them rid the world of terrible men - which, in this day and age? God but does it sound fantastic!

 

Medusa herself was given power over mens' emotions, so you best remember that.

 

Because our heroine, Malina, is basically the one continuing with that magic, as even though the bearers grow old and die, the cycle keeps going. Bad men are everywhere, all at once.

 

Malina's a Dacian, which is to say, today that would be Romania, and she and her family move with a dancing troupe from place to place (very gypsy and Romani of them, I have to say, which is probably the inspiration behind all this). She dances in front of a Roman centurion one night, and he seeks her out after, gifting her with a golden aureus, a coin minted with the image of his mother on one side, made by his father on their wedding day. Fortuna, that willy goddess, whispered in his ear about the action, and you can tell both are entranced by the other.

 

But several years later, and Julian Dakkia, the erstwhile centurion who is now one of Rome's strongest generals and nicknamed Coldhearted Conqueror to boot, is battling an army of Celts, defeating them, when he learns about a supposed witch that some of his men are trying to use for sport.

 

He goes to sort this out - nobody is messing with potential slave material on HIS watch - and who does he see but Malina?

 

That is to say ... he registers it's her. His dragon, on the other hand, sees his gods-given mate, shifts out of there, chomps her main assailant to bits, and carries the girl back to Rome and Julian's home.

 

You know, just your casual Tuesday, no big deal.

 

Julian manages not to get his head on a spike over this, but he does make Malina his body slave, which is hilarious because he doesn't make her DO any of the usual tasks a body slave would do, other than ones designed to specifically physically torment him. In fact, right from the get-go, their relationship is definitely not master-slave, but I don't think Malina gets exactly why for a bit.

 

We learn that Julian is the current Emperor's nephew, that his parents were murdered and he was raised by the man, basically, and that the Emperor is pretty much insane, but it's that chilling, calculating insanity that means you have to be extra careful.

 

Oh, and by the way, Julian is plotting a coup that might remove said insanity with a group of others, no biggie.

 

He eventually lets Malina in on the secret, but only after a few ups and downs between them, and after she starts clocking into the fact that, for someone with such a harsh nickname, he runs a surprisingly free household ... and he's saved every one of his handful of slaves from a pretty grim fate. Including, but not limited to, a dragon bastard who ought to have been put to death because bastards are illegal, but here we are.

 

Malina and Julian are only just getting into the fragility of the whole 'you are my mate' thing (Malina knows her magic has chosen Julian too, mind, so she's not as opposed to it as some other heroines we've met thus far), when his erstwhile rival and nemesis, Ciprian, starts to REALLY piss Julian off.

 

Ciprian, a dragon from the black line, is slated to be named general, and the Emperor wants Julian to host the whole thing. Having figured out Malina means something to his counterpart, Ciprian seeks to get her, but thankfully Malina CAN and DOES manipulate the whole thing with her magic. It does little to help Julian's temper, however.

 

And the Emperor, amused to no end, has the two men fight it out in the Colosseum.

 

Julian wins - because, of course he does. Ciprian doesn't hold a candle to a man who's ACTUALLY fought on battlefields across the empire. But to really seal the deal, a proposed exchange is set: Malina for a prized stallion.

 

Welp, nothing to do but obey, and although Malina prays to Minerva for help, for herself and for Julian, things go from bad to worse rather quickly.

 

Ciprian figures out he has to drug her to negate her magic. She calls to Julian through the magical tether she created through her love. Julian gets there so fast there's vapor in the air behind him shaped like a dragon, and rips Ciprian apart.

 

Then he sets half of the hill on fire and flies away with Malina, because that's what you get when a dragon's mate's threatened.

 

It doesn't help that Ciprian suspected something was wrong and alerted the Emperor about a possible coup, and two of the conspirators are killed after Julian escapes, but what can you. There'll be time for another try at some point, right? Especially now that he knows his own uncle was behind his parents' murders.

 

The two lovers flee to Britannia, where they marry, and send their marriage coin to the Emperor just to rub it in and prove they're still there, fighting. Julian wants to find the only army that bested him, whom he suspects are also dragons, and who could be on their side against the crazed Emperor if they could only find and talk to them. Meanwhile, his former second, Trajan, takes a stand against his general to ensure his own survival, dragging the others behind him so nobody else gets suspected, and they can continue plotting.

 

... and also, Malina, who believes she's the only survivor of Rome massacring her home village, is in for a shock, because at least one of her sisters, Lela, is alive. And a slave in Rome, of all places.

 

Dun dun dun!

 

This was a good read for me, if not quite perfect, but it WAS good and it WAS entertaining and that's all I can ask for!

I enjoyed the MCs and actually liked that they had met before the main action starts taking place. And to everyone eeeeeewing over slave/master ... listen, I'm not saying this is the best ever, but that would only apply if our MC was ACTUALLY acting like a master. Instead, the most she had to do was -checks notes- wash his laundry and hand him towels. Oooh, the horror!

I wish there would have been more of her dancing, actually, because I was spellbound by the prologue and think that's probably the FMCs greatest strength.

Equally, I was kinda sorta hoping we'd do away with the Emperor in this book and then handle the aftermath in the second, but once Ciprian showed up as the main antagonist I sighed and abandoned my hopes. LOL.

Overall, I liked this. It's quick to read, the world with the dragon shifters feels lush and deep, with more to uncover as we go.

... but then again, I thought we'd retired words like 'quim' already 😅 can we PLEASE??

Joke aside though, can't wait to read book 2.

 

xx

*image not mine