Firestorm (The Worldmaker Trilogy, #3)

by Lucy Hounsom

To protect her future, she must defend her past

Kyndra has finally mastered her cold Starborn powers – but is it too late? A faction of assassins, who can manipulate time, plan to rewrite the history of Acre. These Khronostians will ensure the Sartyan Empire was never founded. And in this new narrative, Kyndra is never even born.

With her ally Char, and the rogue Khronostian Ma, Kyndra resolves to enlist the help of the dragons, banished long ago. They must find them first, but together they could generate a huge amount of power. It could propel Kyndra far back in time, to avert the ending of an era. However, Kyndra will be heading towards a terrible confrontation – one that has shaped and will shape the future of her world.

Lucy Hounsom's Worldmaker trilogy comes to a dramatic conclusion in Firestorm.

• ISBN10: 1509840516
• ISBN13: 9781509840519
• Publish Date: 14 December 2017
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 12 April 2024
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Imprint: Pan Books
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 512
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Firestorm is the third installment in the Worldmaker Trilogy by Lucy Hounsom. Published December 14th, 2017 by Pan Macmillan it's over 500 pages of epic fantasy which satisfyingly ties up much of the story arc from the first two books. The author has style and despite the length, the story doesn't drag at all. I found myself looking forward to stealing reading time to spend in this world with these characters. The prose really resonated with me and I never found myself rolling my eyes internally over inane characters or dialogue. The characters are real and their motivations are consistent.

The world building is simply spectacular and the magic system includes timeline/world shifting... and dragons. Honestly, she had me at dragons. Intelligent dragons. This book ticked a whole lot of boxes for me which can lead to inflated expectations and disappointment. Happily for once, the payoff was well worth the journey. This was a very satisfying read and one that I just might go back and revisit from the first book through again.

The prose is beautifully fluid and deftly crafted. For people who read epic fantasy regularly, there's nothing extremely rough or objectionable in the text. I imagine few people go into a three volume campaign fantasy expecting a cat-based cozy romance/mystery... That being said, there -is- murder, betrayal, rape, suicide, and the occasional narrative 'damn' 'hell' or 'bitch'.

This is a brick of a book. There is no hand-holding or spoon feeding of info. It's not particularly good as a standalone, but it is spectacularly well written and I'm looking forward to the author's future work.

Four stars for Firestorm and four and a half for the series. I hope Ms. Hounsom writes more books in this world/milieu. There are some tantalizing backstories left unwritten.

Available in ebook and paperback format.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher.