In this episode of the show, Claire and I discuss Fireborne by AND WITH Rosaria Munda. That's right! We had another author visit so we have a bonus episode this week! Hooray!
Our favorite Bridget Tyler, who you will recognize from several past episodes (The Pioneer, Interview with Bridget Tyler, The Survivor, Interview with Bridget Tyler and Jesse Vilinsky), suggested we read this book to go along with our monthly theme: Remember, Remember the Fifth of November: Read a book with a conspiracy to overthrow a government or an assassination attempt of a monarch. This book is all about destroying an old, corrupt regime and building a new (also corrupt?) one. Oh, also there's DRAGONS. Bridget suggested we discuss this one with Rosaria Munda because she was convinced we'd be able to come up with absolutely TERRIBLE Would You Rather questions to ask the author and, you know what? We did not disappoint.
There are two main characters, Lee and Annie, who each get their own chapters and their own narrators in the audiobook, which everyone should know I love. Christian Coulson narrates Lee and Candice Moll narrates Annie. Christian, as you may recall from a few other books we've discussed on the show, also narrates part of The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich and The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee, and he portrayed Tom Riddle in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. (There are so many things I love in that one sentence.) In addition to these two talented performers, there's a third voice actor who narrates flashbacks, and that narrator is the one and only Steve West, who everyone knows I have an ear-crush on. Yeah, I just made that up. Go with it. To say that this audiobook is fantastic is putting it very lightly.
This book, as previously mentioned, has dragons! This is the first actual real dragon book that I've ever read (not counting the one that I didn't finish that was very racy with human + dragon lovemaking... I don't even remember what that book was called... I think I started to read it because someone suggested it to me as a joke? I don't know.). Here's a brief summary, taken from the author's website: Annie and Lee were just children when a brutal revolution changed their world, giving everyone—even the lowborn—a chance to test into the governing class of dragonriders. Now they are both rising stars in the new regime, despite backgrounds that couldn’t be more different. Annie’s lowborn family was executed by dragonfire, while Lee’s aristocratic family was murdered by revolutionaries. Growing up in the same orphanage forged their friendship, and seven years of training have made them rivals for the top position in the dragonriding fleet. But everything changes when survivors from the old regime surface, bent on reclaiming the city. With war on the horizon and his relationship with Annie changing fast, Lee must choose to kill the only family he has left or to betray everything he’s come to believe in. And Annie must decide whether to protect the boy she loves . . . or step up to be the champion her city needs. DOESN'T IT SOUND FANTASTIC? And there's so much more to it. Lots of fire. Lots of fire everywhere.
And speaking of fire... Here's a recording picture of us where we were talking about burning people or burning ourselves with dragonfire during Would You Rather! Isn't it pleasant?
We talked about burning a lot of people in the game of Would You Rather and in the rest of the bonus episode. We also talked about evolving language and having children versus not having children and Hogwarts houses and map drawing skills and a bunch of other stuff. It was a great conversation. Rosaria is a lot of fun!
And with that, I'll leave you.
Until next time,
Amanda