That cover. I would buy this book for the cover alone. (Though the cover is a 5 star on it's own it has no baring on my review) I started this book and realized it was book 3 of the series so I went back and read the first two.

Firestorm is complex and beautifully written. The magic system, the prose, the world building, and character development was phenomenal. It's hard to go into any amount of detail without spoiling the book because everything I want to talk about is potentially a spoiler. - Needless to say, I enjoyed this series immensely and I would recommend this series to readers who regularly read high fantasy and those who are new to it.

This was an epic and heart racing conclusion to this amazing trilogy. I felt like everything wrapped up and came together perfectly in the end.

“Gareth looked at the trees and flexed his fingers. They opened stiffly, reluctantly. He had to fight the rigor mortis that had set in since that night a week ago…the night he died.”

In Firestorm, you join Kyndra (the somewhat typical mystically chosen warrior/peacemaker) as she aims to foil the plans of an assassin guild to remake history and shape the face of power and indeed history itself. This is a refreshingly unique angle on the typical good vs evil battle that is so typical of the fantasy genre.

The best fantasy books contain so much lore, the only way to read it is to grab onto a character most like you, hold on and enjoy the ride. Lucy Hounsom has certainly refined immersive world building to a fine art. And if you happen to get a bit lost or take a too long break from reading, Lucy has included a handy who’s who and index at the back of the book.

The book, which is the 3rd in the series, contains characters so personable and lifelike that you quickly feel like you’ve known them far longer than a few short hours. As a reviewer, I rarely get to read the preceding work before reading and reviewing the newest addition to a developing saga. However, this doesn’t seem to have affected the epic tale that ‘Firestorm’ unveils to the reader. It is rare that you get to read a book that is completely capable of standing as part of a trilogy as well as its own well-written narrative. Despite reading the ending of a trilogy it has fed me enough titbits and glimpses of the past books not only to hold my interest but leave me wanting more. I will definitely be visiting the previous books. And if you’re lucky enough to have read them already this will assuredly be a most satisfying conclusion to the saga.

Alex

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review

Firestorm is the third installment in the Worldmaker Trilogy by Lucy Hounsom. Published December 14th, 2017 by Pan Macmillan it's over 500 pages of epic fantasy which satisfyingly ties up much of the story arc from the first two books. The author has style and despite the length, the story doesn't drag at all. I found myself looking forward to stealing reading time to spend in this world with these characters. The prose really resonated with me and I never found myself rolling my eyes internally over inane characters or dialogue. The characters are real and their motivations are consistent.

The world building is simply spectacular and the magic system includes timeline/world shifting... and dragons. Honestly, she had me at dragons . Intelligent dragons. This book ticked a whole lot of boxes for me which can lead to inflated expectations and disappointment. Happily for once, the payoff was well worth the journey. This was a very satisfying read and one that I just might go back and revisit from the first book through again.

The prose is beautifully fluid and deftly crafted. For people who read epic fantasy regularly, there's nothing extremely rough or objectionable in the text. I imagine few people go into a three volume campaign fantasy expecting a cat-based cozy romance/mystery... That being said, there -is- murder, betrayal, rape, suicide, and the occasional narrative 'damn' 'hell' or 'bitch'.

This is a brick of a book. There is no hand-holding or spoon feeding of info. It's not particularly good as a standalone, but it is spectacularly well written and I'm looking forward to the author's future work.

Four stars for Firestorm and four and a half for the series. I hope Ms. Hounsom writes more books in this world/milieu. There are some tantalizing backstories left unwritten.

Available in ebook and paperback format.

I love discovering a fantasy series on my own – one that I come to without the influence of hype or expectations. It is rare these days, but it does happen. For me, this was Hounsom’s Worldmaker Trilogy, which has finally come to a close. The final installment, Firestorm, was published yesterday.

While I love to ‘discover’ a series no one is really talking about, it breaks my heart a little when I fall in love with the series and realise that still very few people are talking about it. Well, I’ve been shouting about Starborn and Hounsom’s stories for years now. Hopefully some of you have had the sense to listen. If not, there’s still time. For the rest of December, Starborn is on sale on Kindle. What’s stopping you?

If you’ve been keeping up with the Worldmaker Trilogy, you might be wondering what on Earth Hounsom has in store for you now? In the first novel, Kyndra both broke and remade the world, and in the second, we encountered insane time travellers. The series is the absolute best kind of batshit crazy. But… where to next?
Exciting magic. Time travellers. Dragons. Conquering armies. World-destroying time paradoxes.

‘They were both changed and there was no going back.’
The budding rebellion has a long way to go. Their numbers are limited, positively insignificant compared to Sartya’s mighty Fist. While Kyndra’s attention is occupied with the Khronostian eldest’s mad plans to change hundreds of years of history, General Hagdon looks to increasing the strength of the rebellion in order to protect Rairam from Iresonté’s encroaching forces. Kul’Gareth is yet to reunite the terrifying gauntlets… and when he does, will it save him or destroy them all?

Needless to say, there’s a lot going on. As with the previous two installments, Firestorm is a rollicking ride. I found myself churning through it at an incredible speed. There’s so much going on, so many plot threads, that it is a miracle Hounsom manages to keep them spinning and never lets any of them slip too far out of sight. It’s a solid and thoroughly enjoyable conclusion to a great debut series.

‘The Starborn do not choose their allies lightly.’
That’s not to say it isn’t without its flaws (come on, it’s me…). The first third of the novel is hampered by retreading events of the previous two novels. I understand that publishers often put pressure on their authors to include recaps and so on in their next novels. But really, these are fantasy readers we’re talking about. We aren’t lazy readers. We thrive on knowing these worlds inside out. There’s no need for these repetitious passages, they only serve to slow things down.

I admit that I was a little worried as Part One came to a close. But what seemed like a let-down of a culmination to a major story arc was just a bluff. Hounsom was playing with me. What I worried would be a disappointment just reminded me of how the author likes to play with and surprise the reader. While the trajectory of the novel’s plot is obvious, how the characters reach the end is always an interesting, and surprising journey.

Verdict: A solid conclusion to Hounsom’s trilogy. Not quite as astonishingly brilliant as Starborn but certainly an accomplished and entertaining final installment to a truly epic fantasy series.

A solid conclusion to a steady fantasy trilogy. I have enjoyed this more for the world building than the characters but this was a worthy finale. I look forward to whatever the author produces next.

Even if I did not read the previous books in this series I really enjoyed. Fantasy at its best with food for thought, well developed characters and charming settings.
The book is highly recommended for all the fantasy lovers and, even if the target is Young Adult, can be appreciated at any age.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan

I personally loved reading Firestorm, and gave it 4/5 stars.  Of course I was a big fan of the dragons, I am a predictable human, but the choices Lucy forces her characters into are often profoundly heartbreaking, it's those character moments that really shape this story into what it is.

Kyndra clearly develops from the first book to the third, she gains a lot of wisdom but she's still painfully aware of her own limitations. You can see how Lucy truly cares about the characters she creates, as a reader they become gradually more fleshed out as your learn more about them, sort of like getting to know new friends.

I also have to give Lucy some credit for taking on a topic that many shy away from. Time travel can be a fickle mistress and can create more pitfalls and plotholes for any one book to manage. I think Lucy managed to handle this well, without ever feeling like you lose any of the complexity of the plot just to avoid paradox.

If you read any of the other books in this series, or if you are a fan of YA fantasy, I would recommend giving this series a try all the way to the end. You'll probably find yourself falling for this wonderful cast of characters in some way or another - I know I did!

(Disclaimer - I was sent a digital advanced review copy of Firestorm from the Publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.)

A brilliant end to what has been a brilliant series from Lucy Hounsom – complex, addictive, beautiful world building and hugely character driven.

Watching Kyndra change, adapt and fight her ability, often with the world on her shoulders has been a huge strength of this series for me – that and the other cast surrounding her each one full of depth, the relationship building is just as strong as the world building here and the author manages the many facets of her plot with aplomb.

Full of magic and you know, time travel which is never easy, so often over complicated, also DRAGONS. Look you can’t ask for more than dragons really – but you get much more as in Firestorm changing the timeline changes the perspective and without Kyndra surely the world will be lost?

I just banged through this super fast, devouring the words and living the adventure. Pure book reading bliss.

Highly Recommended – the whole trilogy.