After much deliberation we have come to our picks for our 8th Annual Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off Round One semi-finalists! Today we are announcing our 2nd place semi-finalist, out of our 30 original books!
You can see the list of finalists and their scores here. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can learn more about the contest here.
Now here is our second place semi-finalist!
– – –
Burning Bright by Melissa McShane
Elinor Pembroke is an Extraordinary, and the only one in England capable of wielding fire in over one hundred years. As an Extraordinary, she is respected and feared, but to her father, she represents power and prestige for himself.
Mr. Pembroke, having spent his life studying magic, is determined to control Elinor and her talent by forcing her to marry where he chooses, a marriage that will produce even more powerful offspring.
Trapped between the choices of a loveless marriage or living penniless and dependent on her parents, Elinor takes a third path: she defies tradition and society to join the Royal Navy.
Assigned to serve under Captain Miles Ramsay aboard the frigate Athena, she turns her fiery talent on England’s enemies, French privateers, and vicious pirates preying on English ships in the Caribbean. At first feared by her shipmates, a growing number of victories make her truly part of Athena‘s crew and bring her joy in her fire.
But as her power grows and changes in unexpected ways, Elinor’s ability to control it is challenged. She may have the power to destroy her enemies utterly—but could it be at the cost of her own life?
As I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, our judges are not big romance fans, and went into this story not thinking they would enjoy it much. But this is definitely a case of don’t judge a book by its cover!
Burning Bright, while set in Regency times, is not a “Regency” novel. It’s the story of a woman who takes her fate into her own hands instead of being controlled by the men in her life, and decides to join the navy, instead of marrying into a loveless marriage.
Oh and she can shoot fire out of her hands.
“She can share my hammock any time,” one of the men said, none too softly, to his neighbor, who chuckled. Elinor’s heart sank. How had she gone this long without threat of assault from her fellow officers?
“I thank you for the compliment, sir,” she said, extending her hand as if offering to shake his, “but I fear you would find me an…overly warm companion.” She lit her hand on fire and let the gem-colored flames spread across her palm and up her arm to the elbow.
The man swore and fell out of his chair backward in his attempt to get away from her.
Our judges loved Elinor and were hooked with the story from page one. She deals with sexual innuendo and misogynistic attitudes, and manages to not only survive but thrive in a world meant to belong to men. Her story is exciting and full of adventure, and watching her grow throughout the book was a joy to read. A very uplifting tale in our group of darker stories.
However, at times, especially in the beginning, she was rather timid and even acted a bit naïve at points later in the story, but some of this stemmed both from her upbringing and also the lack of instruction from her fellow shipmates. The story also had her fretting about her clothes and parasols, etc. while on the ship, which yes was a thing in those times, but some judges thought was a little overdone.
Going back to the initial point, there is romance in the story, but it was not the focus and the relationship evolved naturally and felt like it fit with the rest of the story. One judge compared it to the relationships in Pride and Prejudice: a slow burn, where the characters take a while to even acknowledge they like each other at all!
But the book wasn’t all fluff or a badass woman kicking butt. There is a war going on. And hunting pirates is a bloody affair. The darker bits of the story, and how they affected the characters, were present, and balanced the tone well.
But it wasn’t the killing-or not entirely the killing. It was that she’d done it with fire. Her precious, beautiful talent that filled her with such joy, used to turn men into so many piles of bone and ash and grease.
Between the likable and relatable main character and the adventurous plot and setting, this story garnered high marks from all our judges. The biggest issue we had were some of the “professionals” she was working with completely missed very obvious issues and events. This moved the story along, but didn’t really fit their characterizations well. As one judge put it, it didn’t make sense for “experienced men to make catastrophically stupid decisions”, especially more than once.
None of our judges felt these issues took greatly away from their enjoyment, and overall we loved this book. Unfortunately, it was up against stiff competition, and didn’t quite make it to our number one spot. But, if you enjoy strong heroines in a Regency style fantasy, with pirates and magic and just a touch of romance, then this book is for you!
– – –
We would like to thank all the authors for letting us read their work! We congratulate you on having the courage to enter the contest and wish you all much success in the future!
Our official SPFBO rating for Burning Bright is 8.17 (our site rating only does 1/2 stars), beating out our 3rd place winner by .34 points! (I told you competition was tight this year!) Check out the review for our finalist, which should be out shortly after this review is posted!
And again, you can see the list of finalists and their scores here. Our judges this year are Julia Kitvaria Sarene, Kerry Smith, Max Freeman, and Jennie Ivins (me). If you’d like to learn more about us, including our likes and dislikes, you can read about them here.
Any queries should be directed at me, Jennie Ivins, via DM (Facebook/Twitter).
Title image background by PublicDomainPictures.
Julia Kitvaria Sarene