Book Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Harper Teen
Age Range: Young Adult
Publication Date: September 7, 2010

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With her rare ability to breathe fire, Jacinda is special even among the draki—the descendants of dragons who can shift between human and dragon forms. But when Jacinda’s rebelliousness leads her family to flee into the human world, she struggles to adapt, even as her draki spirit fades. The one thing that revives it is Will, whose family hunts her kind. Jacinda can’t resist getting closer to him, even though she knows she’s risking not only her life but the draki’s most closely guarded secret.

Gathering the two most popular  elements of the moment: romance and fantasy, Firelight is without a doubt an addictive story.  It tells the story of Jacinda, a draki (“dragon shapeshifters”) after breaking one of her communitie’s laws and having an encounter with a hunter.  This incident makes Jacinda’s mother to run from the pack along with her twin sister to a place where Jacinda’s drake side could eventually fade.  It’s there where she reencounters her hunter, where everything she has believed in and planned for her future takes a spin.  I really liked this story and the narrator. Seeing her internal conflict to preserve a part of herself and her sister living outside her shadow is astonishing.  On the other hand, I loved her love interest Will since his first appearance where the reader can observe the conflict between free will and “duty”.  I was immersed in Jacinda and Will’s relationship and seeing how both try to run from each other just to end up criss-crossed was sweet.  Even more when both must decide if the life they have been carrying so far is the right way to follow or it’s time to create new rules where they are the protagonists.  I liked the antagonist characters and I look forward to know what made them persecute the drakis, so certainly a prequel wouldn’t be a bad idea.   The end’s a complete cliff hanger, but it’s properly elaborated and looks right for the ending of this first delivery on the series.  Firelight is the strife of a young drake to keep the fire inside her while treasuring the secret where a young human, “her enemy”, will brighten every interior flame.