When I first saw the cover and read the summary for this book, I knew I had to read it. It sounded exactly like the type of book I love. Unfortunately, I was a bit let down with this one. While I absolutely loved the setting and some of the characters (especially Yoshi), I found the plot to be too loose and some of the actions of the characters to be confusing. The pacing was perplexing as well. During the slower paced scenes, we were able to learn more about the characters, but I found that I wasn't quite connecting with some of them. On the other hand, the action based scenes sometimes leapt forward and were discussed as a sort of flashback, which left me confused and wanting more details. Despite these issues, there were some good things here. I enjoyed the strength of the main character, the concept of the Black Clan, and the setting and descriptions. Additionally, there were enough new plot points hinted at that make me interested to continue with this series. In fact, I found the final few scenes to be the most exciting and compelling of all the scenes in the entire book.

I really quite liked this one. Flame in the Mist was the first book I read by this author and it was a pleasant surprise. It was set in feudal Japan, so it immediately had this mysterious feel about it. Mariko as the main character was a strong young girl who sets out on an interesting quest.

I would like to see where this story is going from here.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Renee Ahdieh is one of the best YA authors out there, in my opinion and Flame in the Mist did NOT disappoint! I absolutely loved it!

There are no words for how incredible this title is. So thankful for diverse YA and beautiful storytelling!

Well, that was quite the read. And to be honest, I don't usually read a lot of YA books with plots such as this one, but for some reason I did enjoy this book. Maybe it was the fantasy element, which to be honest surprised me as I at first did not think it could fit into this story. But in the end it was the perfect fit. It made the story more interesting and did explain some things that I was wondering about at the beginning of the story. And maybe it was the whole set up and the characters of the story that sold me on this book. I don't know but I am sure of one thing and that is to read the second book. This one does end on a cliffhanger and not a pretty one at that. Not giving away any spoilers but our main characters do make huge sacrifices, or so it at least seems, for the ones they love and wish to protect. I'm not sure what will happend in the second book but I'm curious to find out how the whole family drama will play out. As it is now, it's really intense. Not to mention what will happen on the throne. Royalty always has had many enemies around them and usually it's the closest to them that in the end bring them the most harm and heartbreak. Makes me glad we live in a world where those times, for the most part, are gone. Democracy definitely has it's good parts compared to royalty, at least in that aspect. No harem of women that are after your throat, not that the character in this book didn't deserve it, just saying...
Anyway, as already said, I did like the story and would recommend it to others for sure.

I’ve still to read that book but I really don’t feel like picking up the story of someone who feels in love with the man who killed her best friend, for whatever reason behind it. As my first Ahdieh’s book, in the end, it was a good reading trip! I didn’t know her style or the way she narrated the story. As much as I heard, looks like A Flame in the Mist is a bit different from her usual. I didn’t mind the paced and the details she put in the novel. I liked them and it made me felt near, maybe not to the characters, but the story itself.One thing that I noticed is how much the author put attention in the female POV. Also, every character represented a different type of women and how they fought their way in a world that looks generally against them.But here is the great part for me: the intrigues. I’m a bit worried, if I can say so, how is gonna resolve in a second book.. but I guess that is a magic that the author knows how to work. Also related to political power and some twist that I wasn’t expecting, emerged some royal figures that at the start seemed quite okay… but they aren’t. The part played in the first novel is quite little and I would have liked to find much more. What I mean is that all of these, mixed with the ending, left me wanting for more and kinda excited for the upcoming events.

Mariko is on her way to the royal city when her convoy is attacked by men she believes to be members of the Black Clan. Alone in the forest, she plans to infiltrate their ranks and discover why they were sent to kill her.

I enjoyed this fantastical book with its Japanese inspiration. The magic is woven wonderfully into the story, augmenting the action and not overwhelming the narrative. The beautiful setting as well as the engaging characters had me from page one. I loved Mariko's journey, her progress, and her strength. I'm looking forward to the next book.

Renée has such an incredible knack for immersing me in her worlds--and Flame in the Mist is no exception. The world is lush, the characters absorbing, the atmosphere tense and romantic and awesome. Mariko! Mariko, my girl!!!! I loved her. I need more. Immediately.

Many thanks for the book! Review can be found here: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/flame-in-the-mist/

Mariko is a talented alchemist in a time when women are only valued for their marriageability. That is why, when her caravan is ambushed on the way to her wedding, Mariko takes the opportunity to escape from both her attackers and her family's expectations. Disguised as a boy, she finds herself enmeshed in a rebel group that values her skills. But when their aims turn to revolution, can she stay with them, or strike out on her own path?

Extremely well written and a fun an fantastic story!

Mariko is on the way to marry Prince Raiden, the son of the emperor's favorite consort when her convoy is attacked in the Jukai forest, and she barely escapes with her life. Believing that the Black Clan is responsible for the attack, she dresses as a boy and tries to infiltrate the clan and figure out why they want her dead.

As she gets to know the clan, she finds that they are not what she expected. She is surprised to discover that they are accepting of her and even appreciate her unique abilities. When love blossoms between Mariko and one of the clan, her lies threaten to keep them apart. Meanwhile her brother is looking for her, and she knows he won't give up until he finds her. Torn between the clan and her family, Mariko has to make a choice.

Flame in the Mist by Renee Ahdieh is an amazing fantasy filled with romance and intrigue. The story is set in feudal Japan in a time where women had very few rights and no choice in their fate. Mariko believes she has no choice but to marry the emperor's son, but when her convoy is attacked, she bravely tries to take control of her fate. The romance develops slowly but eventually comes to a steamy climax. If you like fantasy and romance, you should definitely read this one. I couldn't put it down!

I give this book a 3.5 Star Rating.

My Spoiler Free Review:

When I tried to get a copy of this book everybody was talking about it. The cover looks absolutely stunning so my interest was caught right away. And the summary sounded pretty decent, too. I <b>LOVE</b> Mulan and it’s one of my favourite Disney stories so I had some expectations for this book to meet. It still took me a few weeks to finally start reading this after receiving a copy (due to the stressful time I had been going through with Uni and my results and stuff).

From the beginning on I was quite confused and had some difficulties remembering who was who and which characters were supposed to be the good guys / bad guys. I also didn’t really appreciate all the instant changes of point of views. I barely had enough time to register one character when we were already reading from somebody else’s view. Those povs were kind of tumbling in on themselves.

And the probably most important reason that made it so hard for me to enjoy reading <i>Flame in the Mist</i>: <b>I do not like the protagonist</b>. I find Mariko annoying and quite unreliable and she just simply did not make it easy for me to like her. More about this in the spoilery part.

I know that I’m one of the very few who did not really enjoy this book and I hope that all of you who still have it on their tbr will love it! It just didn’t have the <b>wow-effect</b> on me that I wish it had. Me not liking this book can definitely be blamed on the rough time I went through when I read it. I do plan on continuing with the series when the sequel gets out because I think it’s an interesting plot, it just didn’t fit me at the time and I hope I’ll enjoy it better if I re-read it one day.


The Part That Might Contain Spoilers:

Back to the part where I don’t like Mariko. I questioned every single decision she made starting with the very first (and probably most irrational) one; to follow the <i>Black Clan</i> although she thought of them as dangerous murderers. Let’s face it, if they were exactly how she imagined them, she wouldn’t have survived 5 minutes with them.

And I couldn’t take it seriously that NOBODY noticed she wasn’t a boy. If I remember correctly she should be around 17 years old and at that age you can see a woman’s feature very accentuated in a girl’s face , so why didn’t any of the guys look at her close enough? But I decided to let it be and <i>find myself at peace with this</i> because Mulan also managed to hide that (and it’s also kind of bothering me there so…).

Also I kind of feel like there were not enough character developments in the story..? Basically the only ones that really “changed” were Mariko, her brother and Okami. All the others just had hidden background stories that came to light to mark who they were, but they didn’t evolve throughout the pages...

In the sequel I would very much like to see more of the bromance between Takeda Ranmaru and Okami because that’s true friendship right there. And I want to know more about their history. Although this might seem like a very negative review (and I apologise if it really does come across like that), I hope to see the sequel perform better and that <i>Ahdieh</i> digs a little deeper into the characters’ feelings. This is my first time reading a book by her and I’m not sure how this makes me feel about <i>The Wrath and the Dawn</i> series that’s still on my tbr…

An excellent fantasy set in feudal Japan. The slight touch of magic keeps it in the fantasy genre but this is truly more historical fantasy than an entirely different world. I loved all the characters and how each of them were flawed and struggling. The mystery surrounding the attack in the forest on Mariko and her desire to exact revenge herself sets up great conflict in the book. All the characters are rich and layered. I anticipate this title being wildly popular in my high school library and will purchase multiple copies.

Flame in The Mist is a great read for someone who likes a fast-paced adventure. One of my favorite elements was definitely the Asian-inspired setting. I just love exploring different customs and the whole culture is fascinating. We got some of that in this book - from weapons, assassins, to class differences and tea rooms. Oh, and, of course, delightful plotting.

I am not a big fan of the flowery language that Renee uses however in this book and setting it wasn’t out of place and did not interrupt the flow of the book.

While this book is somewhat comparable with the Mulan story, our main character isn’t driven to the battlefield by her feelings of honor. Mariko is on her way to the capital to be married off to a prince when she is beset by a group of assassins. Her narrow escape presents her with two choices: either make her way back to her family house and be shipped off for the capital once more, or attempt to find who wants to have her killed and this way try and maintain independence as long as possible.

One of my favorite tropes is used in this book: a girl masquerading as a boy. Also, even though a love story is expected, the plot twists came as a nice surprise and didn’t push the romance down our throats (hooray for that). I’d like to see that relationship develop in the next book.

Of course, it all ended on a delightful cliffhanger so I’ll definitely pick up the next book to see how it all turns out! All in all, a light read perfect for a binge.

As a huge fan of Ahdieh's debut duology, I would certain I was going to like this book. Well, to be quite honest, my feelings fall somewhere in the middle of the satisfaction spectrum. First and foremost, I want to point out that it isn't a Mulan retelling, as it was advertised by some websites before the publication date. The plot was quite satisfactory, but I wasn't particularly interested and invested in the characters. I really want to read the sequel, though!

I’m afraid Renée Ahdieh’s books and I aren’t a great match. I didn’t particularly love The Wrath & The Dawn when I first read it, and I didn’t love Flame in the Mist either. It isn’t that the books are bad, I actually quite enjoy the stories itself, but there’s something about the writing which makes me unable to fully dive into the story or connect with the characters. It just doesn’t seem to pull me in at all, which is really a shame because there are so many things that I do like about her books.

I really enjoyed the main character, Mariko. She’s incredibly intelligent, resourceful and headstrong: she needs to know who was planning on murdering her and why, and nothing will stop her. She decides to cut her hair, disguise herself as a boy, and join the Black Clan, whom she believes were sent to kill her.

Mariko gets very close to the Black Clan fast and feels a real connection to them, even though she’s still convinced that they were send to kill her, and even though there is a clear lack in the connection between her in the other guys, which makes the fact that she feels like she truly belongs here a bit unbelievable. So, when she chooses the Clan whom she has known for what? A few weeks? Over her own twin brother, it feels very strange.

Then there’s the romance between Mariko and Okami, one of the members of the Black Clan, which felt very strange and out of place. Sure, it was kind of swoon worthy and they complement each other quite well, but I found myself almost skipping over the scenes between the two because I just didn’t care. I also didn’t appreciate the bi-erasure in this book (which honestly might be a big part of the reason why I didn’t like the romance), because the whole romance only really ‘develops’ once Okami finds out that Mariko is actually a girl (seriously, they kiss literally seconds after he finds out) and the fact that Okami was clearly attracted to her, even when he thought she was a boy, was brushed to the side and never spoken of. This hurt.

I, however, did really like the world and the side plots that Renee Ahdieh crafted. The world was very magical, intriguing and mysterious, and even if you didn’t care that much about the main plot or the romance, the side-plot about the emperor and his love or Mariko’s brother would keep you from putting the book down. And I really do feel like this series has a lot of potential, and that it could become absolutely amazing once the series progresses, so even if I didn’t like this book all that much I am planning on picking up the second book.

All in all, I didn’t like Flame in the Mist all that much. The writing style is just not for me, I didn’t really care about the main plot, and the romance felt very out of place. The book did have a lot going for it though, like the amazing main character, the great world and the interesting side-plots. But overall, I felt incredibly underwhelmed by the book and the bi-erasure stung, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it.

Very good. I enjoyed this more than Wrath and the Dawn. Sequel please!

Note: Review will go live on July 21, 2017

Right off the bat, there were several things going for this book when I first saw that it was coming out. First and foremost, I had very much liked Abdieh's previous YA fantasy duology, a re-telling of "One Thousand and One Nights, "The Wrath and the Dawn" and "The Rose and the Dagger." Together they made up a unique re-telling of one of the few remaining fairytales that hasn't been beaten into the ground (this coming from an avid fan of fairytale re-tellings), and the style of writing appealed to me with its lyrical quality. "Flame in the Mist" had the same elements. To its detriment.

I want to applaud the author, however, for sticking to her guns in choosing lesser known stories and focusing her world-building and characters on non-European/western settings and cultures. Here we have what is essentially a "Mulan" re-telling set in a proto-Asian setting. I don't have a wealth of knowledge of Chinese/Japanese/etc cultures, so I can't speak to those aspects of the book (similar to my lack of knowledge of the "realism" of the Middle Eastern setting used in her previous duology). However, both that series and this are set in fantasy worlds, for all their similarities, so outside of blatant issues (which there were none that I could tell), there was a lot of free reign to build a completely new world order/culture with this story. This was one aspect of the story that I really enjoyed. It was refreshing to read a fantasy setting that takes place in an eastern setting. This left not only the fantasy elements to learn and to explore, but also the immersive quality of being quite outside my own culture, while still having threads to tie back to what little I do already know of the regions of the world that this stories draws from. Full marks for world building.

Unfortunately, that leads me to the rest of the story, all of which I had more issues with. First off, I feel as if, as a reader, I would have been better served having this book not presented to me as a "Mulan" re-telling. For better or worse, my knowledge of that story is pretty well tied up with the Disney version. I know the story is based on a traditional Chinese fairytale of a young woman who dresses and fights as a man, but I haven't read it and couldn't even speak to the accuracy of Mulan. So...Disney's all I've got with this one.

One of the things that made Disney!Mulan's story appealing were the noble and, most importantly in this case, understandable reasons for why she does what she does. Her hand is quite literally forced, for love of her father and nothing more. Sure, she feels out of place in her own skin and that she is letting her family down, but she never contemplates abandoning home until the situation with her father being called to war comes to play. Not so with Mariko.

For all intents and purposes, Mariko is quite acceptable as a daughter. Sure she's frustrated and angered by the fact that she is being traded away in marriage, but alas, such is the life she was born to lead. In the short introduction we are given to her character before the action sets in, we are given every reason to think that Mariko is above all a practical and dutiful daughter. These are traits she prides herself in. But then her caravan is attacked, her guards and maid killed, and she finds herself wandering around in the woods alone. And this is where I first knew there were going to be issues for me with this book. Mariko rightly worries that her situation is going to be problematic for her family to explain; when/if she returns home, her virtue could be called into question due to this, and through this, her family's honor. What is to be done? Obviously, running away, disguising herself as a boy, and tracking down those who attacked her so that she can save her virtue. Somehow.

I'm a fantasy reader, I'm more than happy to turn my brain off and go on many a adventure where implausible things happen. But only so far as the world allows. This type of blatant, plot-serving faulty logic drives me bonkers. How in the world could dressing up as a boy and hanging out with a bunch of (male!) thieves improve her chances of retaining her family's honor and her own virtue? Nothing about it makes sense. And unfortunately, this type of backwards thinking continues for Mariko throughout the story. She sometimes even made the right decision, but made it for such the wrong reason that I couldn't even give her credit for it.

Beyond this, I've found that in this, the third book I've read by this author, the writing is starting to get on my nerves. What came off as lyrical and appropriate in the previous duology, read as strained and forced here. Perhaps the focus on storytelling that was at the center of the other two books simply lent itself better to this type of writing, and now, removed from that topic, it simply felt awkward. It's hard to even describe, really, as sentence-by-sentence there's nothing wrong with the writing. But as I kept reading, it just kind of built up as an annoyance, and enough of one that I repeatedly found myself putting the book down.

"The Flame in the Mist" was not for me. I could never get behind Mariko as a main character with her blatantly contradictory thought process and decision making, and the more dramatic and lyrical writing style seemed to rub uncomfortably with this more action-oriented tale. For those looking for a good woman/warrior story, pull out the classic "Alanna" series instead. Or, hey, check out the "Bloodbond" series that I recently finished up and loved.

It has a really good story and magic system, the writing is beautiful as always, but the characters felt too similar to Ahdieh’s previous books which distract me from truly enjoying the story. I'd love to know more about the magic and how the conflict will be resolved!