Ignite the Sun by Hanna Howard
Pub Date 08/18/2020
Syfy fantasy YA

I absolutely loved this book. I can believe how much I enjoyed this one, I didn't want it end. I hope there is a second book to follow. 

This fantasy was one about darkness against light. They haven't seen the sun in 15 years. It had super cool characters like a sun child, naiads, wood nymphs and even a banshee.
Siria Nightingale is sort of an outcast at the all girls school. Siria is hoping to be picked for the Queens court. But soon finds out that there much bigger things to be had. 
Her and her gardener, who she thinks of as a grandfather and his son are all about to make the journey of a life time. 

I've read so many of the reviews for this book and think that fantasy is judge a lot harder then the average thriller is. So please don't go by the reviews, read this one anyway. I laughed and enjoyed this one so very much.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Thank to the publisher and to #netgalley for a copy to read I loved it.

Siria Nightingale has spent her entire life in darkness. 

And no, she wasn't locked up in a cold cellar. Her entire world is literally shrouded in darkness.

Queen Iyzabel always told her people that the light is dangerous and has hidden her kingdom for protection...and while Siria can't quite put her finger on it...something is off. Very off.  

On the eve of her sixteenth birthday, she's called into the royal city along with a handful of similarly aged girls. 

The night was dreamy - suspiciously so - and soon Siria (and the rest of the girls) fall under the Queen's spell.

But when the Queen announces her plan to kill the sunchild hidden among the girls...let's just say things get a little dodgy.

Siria flees her only home with her best friend and hid grandfather. They must trek their way across hazardous terrain, flee bespelled guards and fight bloodthirsty creatures to try to find the sun. 

But the longer she goes without, the more she doubts that their small party could hold a candle to the evil Queen's army.

So.

This one started pretty darn good.

I LOVED the world-building and most of the magic system. 

I feel like the whole world-doesn't-have-sun has been done so many times but this if the first time I've found myself nodding along and going, "yup. this makes sense."

I was also really intrigued by the way Siria developed her powers.

But what ultimately threw me out of the book is the sheer amount of coincidences.

The situation gets too tough? Siria passes out, scene fades to black, she wakes up (relatively) unharmed. 

The situation requires powers beyond her current level? Siria looks within herself, and then snaps her fingers and the powers come out.

The situations seems hopeless in every way, shape and form? Here's a couple of conveniently placed characters who literally have the exact skill set and/or personal connections needed to this situation.

When I read books, I want desperation. I want knife-edge tension. But halfway through, I figured out that there truly was no real danger cause whatever the main character needs will be given to her.

Other than that, this one was rather well-written and I did enjoy the characters. The plot was just completely tension-less.

Audiobook Notes:

Really, really well done! I've listened to 500+ audiobooks in the last 2-3 years and this one was fabulous. I love the tone/inflection and it definitely let me experience the book an a whole different way. So much fun to listen to! With the audiobook narrative, the book was boosted by a star.

This one was a bit younger than I originally thought. I felt more of a Young Reader vibe than Young Adult. The main character had more qualities of a 12-year-old girl than a 16-year-old young woman. 

I loved the world-building and magic system. I thought the use of light/ dark magic was cleaver and I loved learning about the other magical creatures as well. 

Lastly, the narrator was awesome. Her voices were perfect, clear, and fun. I would definitely listen to one of her other narrations. 

I’d recommend this to middle school/ 9th/ and 10th graders that love fantasy!

This was a typical but enjoyable YA fantasy book. Its not bad, just a tad predictable. It did make use of quite a few YA tropes but luckily it ignored some of the worse ones. There was no love triangle,  Siria wasn't a plain girl just like everyone else, she had a bit of a personality, and she never let go of a breath she didn't know she was holding.

The story was interesting,  a girl finds out she has sun powers and only she can save the country from an evil queen who has covered the land in darkness but fist she needs to discover her powers and go on a quest with a rag-tag group of friends.

The whole thing was basic but not bad. It held my interest enough that I never considered DNFing it. This would be a great book for young readers. It has a better lead character than Twilight or The Hunger Games. 

If you have a young kid in your life, this would be a good gift. If you're an adult and want to read it,  you could do worse.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for giving me this free ALC in exchange for an honest review.

2016 me would have completely loved this book. It has all the makings of a fun, engaging YA fantasy novel- a cute, funny love interest, an expansive magic system, a "woe is me why is this happening", but overall compassionate Chosen One MC who becomes determined to bring down the big baddie, a female villain who doesn't waste everyone's time explaining why things need to be going her way. Character driven plot and great pacing and action scenes. Found family. 

2020 me still found this a fun and engaging read, but now I'm used to a little more happening with plot than spending the entire novel escaping the long way through a forest, only to go back for the Big Fight. The villain is a character the MC hasn't spoken to. All the side characters are really Nice*TM and lack any real depth beyond the fact that they've all lost family in the Villainous Takeover. Things actually go (mostly) according to plan. 

So. It was fun. 

I will say though, that the narrator did a splendid job! This audiobook was a very engaging listen and I did thoroughly enjoy every second of it.

You know what I should have done? I should have listened to that little voice at the back of my head—the one I NEVER listen to—that whispered, "DNF it."

I have been deceived by that downright stunning cover. While the premise of a world deprived of sunlight was what immediately grabbed my interest, I found it to be poorly executed. The world-building felt ... incomplete. I struggled to absorb the details. Worse, I found it difficult to remember that this is a world of pure darkness. Literally the premise that drew me in, and it didn't click well for me. I was surprised to find that this was a world of nymphs, witches, banshees and the like. It was an interesting twist! The villain I found to be rather weak, who basically hates the sun and doesn't want anyone else to have magic.

I knew this would be rather wholesome given the imprint, but I didn't expect such a cringe-worthy and tropey book. This was not a good Chosen One trope. I usually don't have a problem with those stories, but I want the main character to be more, "What? Oh, sh*t, sweet. Let's do this." Instead, Siria served a lot of whining. I really stopped caring toward the end, but in the beginning, my understanding of the plan for her to save the world was to travel across the country and be yeeted into the middle of the ocean where direct sunlight was. The romance was not one for me to be a fan of, and I didn't think it really added anything to the story. 

Even though the Chosen One trope was rough, I could have dealt with it had it not been for the main character. We are given very little opportunity to meet her before BAM! You are the one who will save us all. She lost my support pretty quick once I realized how properly whiny and snobbish she is. "You only care about me because I'm the Sun Child. I don't want to walk across the country. My parents don't love me. I can't touch anyone ever again because I have no desire to learn to contain my new powers." Wah. 

The audiobook narration was not my cup of tea and my very well have ruined the whole book for me. While the sample initially appealed to me and led me to request it, it turned out to be far too over-the-top dramatic. Several of the voices were downright annoying or had accents that just seemed ridiculous. 

I wish I had more better to say, but all in all, this was disappointing and not for me.

Ignite the Sun by Hannah Howard was an exciting Fantasy novel. The story starts off quickly and doesn’t slow down. I listened to the audiobook in one straight sitting. 

Siria finds out very early on that she is not fully who she believes she is and continuously questions who she can trust and what she can believe. While Siria is “Team Light” she is up against “Team Darkness,” the witch Queen Iyzabel. I enjoyed the untypical mythology in this story which lended a uniqueness to this book. I was so- so on the relationship. I would have liked to have seen a slower build up to the characters falling for each other. Lastly, I enjoyed the world but felt we didn’t get to learn enough about it. I would have liked to have seen much more world building.

I thoroughly enjoyed the narration by McKenzie Fetters. I found her voices unique and distinct. 

I received an advanced audiobook from Blink through NetGalley. All opinions are 100% my own.

I want to give this book more stars but in the end it fell a little flat for me.

It certainly had a lot of potential, I loved the  premise and the world building was very solid. Set in a kingdom that has quite literally been plunged into darkness by an evil queen, Siria believes she is a normal girl but soon discovers she is the last sunchild and able to draw power from the sun. She then has to take a journey, joined by a host of others from mages to nymphs to banshees, to restore the sun and destroy the regime. This felt like a fresh idea in the world of fantasy novels, the rules of magic were well established and it was interesting to see a different take on familiar mythological elements. 

Despite these positives, I was disappointed in a lot of other areas. The plot felt rushed and the characters underdeveloped. The villain of the piece is particularly underwhelming with a weak backstory introduced towards the end, almost as a throwaway, and lacking in menace..  In general, the supporting characters are each given good backgrounds but I don’t think they were really utilised enough. The romance between Siria and Lindon was sweet but didn’t add much to the story.

I would say this is more on the teen end of the Young Adult market and a bit underdeveloped for the older reader. Overall, I am interested to see how this author progresses, she came up with a great concept and world for her debut and I think there’s certainly potential there.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book and perhaps that affected my experience. I found the narrator a bit distracting and her voices rather exaggerated. 

Thank you to Netgalley And the publishers for an advance copy of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to the publisher for providing an ARC of the audiobook edition of Ignite the Sun in exchange for an honest review.
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Ignite the Sun's plot, world, and magic system are incredible, they're just told through an unoriginal narrative and an annoy-at-best protagonist. Our MC suffers from world-revolves-around-me-itis. She's saved by a group of rebels and spends the entire first leg of their journey complaining about how much walking their doing. My favourite character was definitely Marrow who just fully put her in her place for it but unfortunately, no one else does. Don't get me wrong, that 'I'm out of my element let me complain about something dumb while running for my life' thing can be done right, but only when it's a point of growth. Ignite the Sun consistantly reminds you that Siria's 'not like the other rich girls' so suddenly having her act really pampered and prissy just didn't make any sense and since she already started off appreciating the little things you can't exactly write an arc where she learns to do that.

Above all, the pacing was just too off. The chapters are incredibly short which I usually love but this isn't a fast paced story. It takes place over multiple weeks but we'd get like 10 chapters within a day or two then a quick "and then 2 weeks happened and nothing changed." I truly don't get why the journey wasn't just made shorter (that way I could have also been spared Siria's complaining). I thought if anything the length was there to help with character growth (which we see very little of as I previously mentioned) or to make her budding romance more believable but the problem is, it isn't a 'budding romance'. 

Her love interest is someone she knew as a child but they start off having not talked for a while. At first I was expecting it to grow into a romance but instead she very quickly goes "yup. I'm in love with him." I love stories where we watch characters fall in love. I love stories where we watch two characters already established to be in love grow together. Choosing to pull a "uhhh they were childhood best friends but it's been a few years so their chemistry is a little awkward but also they're going to be in love right away and you have to trust me because they were childhood friends" felt like a weird choice.

Audiobook wise, our narrator was lovely. Perhaps a little over dramatic at times but I'm all for over the top narration for fantasies.