Book Review | So Let Them Burn

Whip-smart and immersive, this Jamaican-inspired fantasy follows a gods-blessed heroine who’s forced to choose between saving her sister or protecting her homeland – perfect for fans of The Priory of the Orange Tree and Fourth Wing.

Faron Vincent can channel the power of the gods. Five years ago, she used her divine magic to liberate her island from its enemies, the dragon-riding Langley Empire. But now, at seventeen, Faron is all powered up with no wars to fight. She’s a legend to her people and a nuisance to her neighbours.

When she’s forced to attend an international peace summit, Faron expects that she will perform tricks like a trained pet and then go home. She doesn’t expect her older sister, Elara, forming an unprecedented bond with an enemy dragon – or the gods claiming the only way to break that bond is to kill her sister.

As Faron’s desperation to find another solution takes her down a dark path, and Elara discovers the shocking secrets at the heart of the Langley Empire, both must make difficult choices that will shape each other’s lives, as well as the fate of their world. -Waterstones

Thank you to Little, Brown Book Group and NetGalley for the eARC of So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole.

This is the first in a new Jamaican-inspired YA fantasy series featuring magic, political intrigue and plenty of betrayals. I was very excited and intrigued by this novel, the description sounded fresh, but still playing on a lot of the tropes that I love in YA.

The magic system in this world is very interesting, it features Gods and acolytes which I don’t think is that explored in the YA I’ve seen, so it felt unique. I enjoyed that despite one of the characters being a ‘Chosen One’ of sorts, the reasoning for her choosing was nicely explained and the character does really battle with this reasoning throughout the novel.

I love a good sibling relationship in YA, especially one between two sisters. The relationship between Faron and Elara is perfect, a good mix of undying support and constant competition between the two of them. There are nice developments in their relationship which I appreciated too.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the romance that started to develop about half way through the novel, it felt very rushed and also just a convenient plot point, that wasn’t really built on any concrete foundations. However without giving anything away, the romance doesn’t really last very long!

The only element of the novel that slightly let me down, and which was the reason for a slightly lower rating was the ending. The novel is so well plotted and written until the last quarter where everything just goes a bit haywire. The perfect pacing and plotting seems to go out of the window to allow for a lot of things to happen. It felt unnecessarily busy, like the author was slightly trying to cram everything in, and it was just really jarring compared to the rest of the novel!

Overall I did like So Let This Burn, and I am interested to see what happens in book 2, especially since the ending was so chaotic!

Huge thank you again to Little, Brown Book Group and NetGalley for the eARC! Thank you for reading my book review of So Let Them Burn.

Buy So Let Them Burn on Waterstones or Bookshop.org (affiliate links)

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