Review--Firelight by Sophie Jordan

A HIDDEN TRUTH.

MORTAL ENEMIES.

DOOMED LOVE.

Marked as special at an early age, Jacinda knows her every move is watched. But she longs for freedom to make her own choices. When she breaks the most sacred tenet among her kind, she nearly pays with her life. Until a beautiful stranger saves her. A stranger who was sent to hunt those like her. For Jacinda is a draki—a descendant of dragons whose greatest defense is her secret ability to shift into human form.

Forced to flee into the mortal world with her family, Jacinda struggles to adapt to her new surroundings. The only bright light is Will. Gorgeous, elusive Will who stirs her inner draki to life. Although she is irresistibly drawn to him, Jacinda knows Will's dark secret: He and his family are hunters. She should avoid him at all costs. But her inner draki is slowly slipping away—if it dies she will be left as a human forever. She'll do anything to prevent that. Even if it means getting closer to her most dangerous enemy.

Mythical powers and breathtaking romance ignite in this story of a girl who defies all expectations and whose love crosses an ancient divide.

Sophie Jordan's Firelight was far better than what I was expecting. Draki--dragons--are a pretty much untouched subject in my book. Have read 1 or 2 books with a different mythical creature, but draki, not so much. But it was truly fascinating!

I did hear that this book has a Twilight feel, only backwards. The girl, Jacinda is a draki, a fire-breather the only one of her kind in her pride and the boy is the human and draki hunter. So it also has a little bit of Buffy going on too, more so than Twilight really!

Jacinda loves her draki self while her mother let hers die and her twin sister never transformed into one. One day Jacinda went flying with her friend, which was forbidden and attracted the attention of hunters. Which just led to big trouble for Jacinda. In order to protect her, her mother packs them up and moves them away to hide out in normalcy. Tamra, her sister, is thrilled with the change, a human living amongst draki was never the life for her, but Jacinda is the opposite.

I had conflicting feelings towards Jacinda, while I could sympathize her with being forced to leave her draki pride behind, there were times I felt like she was being pretty selfish, always whining, me, me, me! But then I would get mad with her mother and sister for trying to force Jacinda into being more human and letting her draki die as her mother did. I'm not a fan of people making decisions for others. So I literally went back ad forth with hating and liking the characters. 

Sometimes though, that's refreshing. Sure I like loving a character completely, but I also like the love-hate too. Jacinda and Will start their relationship along the lines of Twilight where Jacinda knows she should stay away from Will, but can't. The attraction is too much. But since he's a hunter, he comes from a family of hunters which just adds up to a dangerous mess. Especially when one of his cousins starts to get a little suspicious. 

The romance was the budding teenage kind common in YA so it was pretty tame and still "teenly" intense! And the ending has quite a few shocking surprises, so I will definitely have to check out Jordan's Vanish come this fall!

Overall rating 3.5/5, a really decent read!