ARC Review--Fireborn by Keri Arthur

From New York Times bestselling author Keri Arthur comes a brand new series featuring heroine Emberly Pearson—a phoenix capable of taking on human form, and cursed with the ability to foresee death…

Emberly has spent a good number of her many lives trying to save humans. So when her prophetic dreams reveal the death of Sam, a man she once loved, she does everything in her power to prevent that from happening. But in saving his life, she gets more than she bargained for.

Sam is working undercover for the Paranormal Investigations Team, and those who are trying to murder him are actually humans infected by a plague-like virus, the Crimson Death—a by-product of a failed government experiment that attempted to identify the enzymes that make vampires immortal. Now, all those infected must be eliminated.

But when Emberly’s boss is murdered and his irreplaceable research stolen, she needs to find the guilty party before she goes down in flames…

I received this ARC from the publishers via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, I was in no way compensated for this review. 


Keri Arthur is one of those authors that just continues to amaze me! She has written a ton of novels and they only seem to get better and better! Fireborn, the first in her new series, Souls of Fire, is no exception!

This time however, instead of the usual vampires or werewolves or angel type characters, she brings us Emberly, a bona-fide phoenix. With an entirely new kind of character-creature comes new mythology to know in order to understand about Emberly's other half and Keri does this beautifully! It can be hard sometimes adjusting to new worlds and characters, but it's not so much in this one. A few details were hard to grasp at first about the phoenix nature, but it wasn't long before I could understand it!

Keri has a knack for building up incredible relationships--and complicated ones too! And we get all that here as well! Emberly's got a few guys going on in her life, but not in a way that comes off trashy. There's Rory, her phoenix companion who she basically needs by her side to survive. Her ex-boyfriend Sam comes waltzing back into her life when she decides to save his life. And then there's Jackson, a fire fae who she gets immediately attracted to! So there's some definite relationship drama, but again, it's not at all bad! I got so wrapped up in it all! And despite some major trust issues and other past complications, I am totally rooting for the old flame, Sam!

When Emberly's boss is murdered and she is a key source in trying to solve the murder, she and Sam are once again reunited...and it definitely wasn't good. There's still a thick sheen of tension between these two. Emberly try as she might, can't get over Sam while it appears that Sam is over her. But as we all know, appearances can be deceiving!

I got very much wrapped up in the murder and the whole Crimson Death virus that's floating around. Emberly's boss was deep into researching it and it seems he was killed for this research. And since Emberly was his research assistant, she becomes a hot commodity for the bad guys.

This was an extremely well-paced novel. The action and investigation was coupled just right with other things like character development and of course some romance! I can definitely sense a few things that are going to happen in this one, but the deeper details of course remain a mystery, as it should be!

Keri Arthur has done it again and written yet another insanely hot series that is sure to amaze all and garner new and old readers the day its released! While the rest of us hold our breaths relentlessly as we await its sequel! An astounding read by far!


Overall Rating 5/5 stars


Fireborn releases July 1, 2014