{"id":18176,"date":"2021-05-27T19:11:07","date_gmt":"2021-05-28T00:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sadieforsythe.com\/wp\/?p=18176"},"modified":"2022-09-18T21:38:29","modified_gmt":"2022-09-19T02:38:29","slug":"wings-of-fire-stephanie-mirro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sadieforsythe.com\/wp\/wings-of-fire-stephanie-mirro\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Wings of Fire, by Stephanie Mirro"},"content":{"rendered":"

I received a free Audible credit for a copy of Wings of Fire<\/a>, by Stephanie Mirro<\/a>.
\n\"wings<\/em><\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t always the bad guy\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Once upon a time, I was simply Veronica Neill: daughter, sister, phoenix. But now I\u2019m all alone, and life as the Falcon\u2014an avian shifter and acquirer of fantastical things\u2014is dangerously sexy and fun.<\/em><\/p>\n

Some might even call me a thief, just never to my face.<\/em><\/p>\n

But when my latest acquisition is stolen before I arrive and a gruesome murder is blamed on me, I’ve got a choice to make: 1) get taken in by the hotter-than-hell agent sent by the Death Enforcement Agency and let them charge me with a crime I didn\u2019t commit, or 2) wait for my bloodsucking client to realize I’ve failed at the job he hired me for.<\/em><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t like either door, so I’ll take the window instead: track down the real killer and clear my name.<\/em><\/p>\n

If I don\u2019t solve this murder, and fast, then I might just be facing a lifetime in a grim prison\u2014or worse, a lifetime of servitude to the man who hired me, a man who\u2019s turning out to be more dangerous than I realized. And my kind lives for a very long time.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"my<\/p>\n

I thought this was entertaining, but a little on the shallow side. Veronica tells us she’s badass because she’s trained her whole life to be. But you don’t really feel it. It’s just something we’re told and pops up conveniently when needed. Need weapons…oh look, she has a secret stash. Need to get around a security issue…oh look, her BFF is a hacker genius. Need to fight demons…oh look, she happens to have a demon fighting sword. Need to fight vampires…oh look she happens to have wood filled bullets. But nothing about her feels like a hardened, trained warrior or someone who has had to live the sort of life that would require it.<\/p>\n

I liked the ‘love’ interest well enough, but he’s a cardboard cutout with the personality to match. The villain is evil for the most cliched reasons ever. I bet if I told you their gender alone, you’d be able to guess their motiviations. And I’d figured out the twist at the end very early one.<\/p>\n

And lastly, on a purely personal pet-peeve sort of level, “Wings of Fire: A Kickass Urban Fantasy With Romance (The Last Phoenix, Book 1)” is pretentious. What the hell is that “A Kickass Urban Fantasy With Romance?” It’s not part of the title. That’s not where you’d put a tag line. It’s just this random assertion in an unexpected place.<\/p>\n

I know that all sounds negative, and certainly the book could have been less cotton-candy like, but I did enjoy it for the mere escapism of it.<\/p>\n

\"wings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I received a free Audible credit for a copy of Wings of Fire, by Stephanie Mirro. I wasn\u2019t always the bad guy\u2026 Once upon a time, I was simply Veronica Neill: daughter, sister, phoenix. But now I\u2019m all alone, and life as the Falcon\u2014an avian shifter and acquirer of fantastical things\u2014is dangerously sexy and fun. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":21712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[397,231,118,517,675,142],"class_list":["post-18176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-booksbook-review","tag-audiobook","tag-book-review","tag-romance","tag-self-published","tag-stephanie-mirro","tag-urban-fantasy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sadieforsythe.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sadieforsythe.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sadieforsythe.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sadieforsythe.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sadieforsythe.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18176"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/sadieforsythe.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18697,"href":"http:\/\/sadieforsythe.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18176\/revisions\/18697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sadieforsythe.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sadieforsythe.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sadieforsythe.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sadieforsythe.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}