Title A Heart Afire Author Jared T.L.C. Cover Art Tallulah Fontaine Publisher 2015 First Printing 2015
	Title A People in Two Author Jared T.L.C. Cover Art --- Publisher --- First Printing ---
	Category Fantasy Warnings None Main Characters Evan, Kaven, Delya Main Elements Wizards, Gods Website jaredtlc.com

A Heart Afire

My first reaction to this book was that it made me feel good. I was a little depressed at the time and this actually gave me some warm fuzzy feelings. I'm not sure if this is considered Christian fiction, I didn't see any blatant links, but it was nice to read about a teenager who isn't moaning all the time about various angsty things. Evan may not know what he wants to do with his life after he graduates high school but he does know he loves his family and friends, even if he is a bit confused about recognizing what girl is right for him. Sometimes he would have rather inexplicable negative reactions to people, but I decided to blame that on teenage hormones. Can't have the protagonist be perfect!

But he has bigger things on his mind than girl troubles when he's pulled into another world to be its saviour. Only, it seems that being a saviour isn't all that its cracked up to be, and seems like no one is who they appear to be. Jared has made a fascinating world with interesting and believable inhabitants...well, except one, the necromancer who was so disgusting and disturbing and yet played no particular role that I could see, he was dealt with in all of two seconds by the arrival of the Elphs. I don't think the story would have been altered one bit if Evan didn't come across the dark pyramid, nothing much was learnt there other than don't eat imaginary food...(and don't read this book while you are recovering from a stomach bug, Evan throws up at least twice which made me a little queasy too, heh)

In fact, there is a bit of a dystopic vibe going on in Helvendah which really got me hooked. What are the motivations of the Elphs? Immortal, and presumably bored to tears of living an idyllic life day in day out.

The pacing was a bit slow at the start, not that we needed Evan to leap right into this other world, but the author went into a bit too much detail describing Evan's last day of school and the party that night. And there are two places where there is a big chunk of time dedicated to visiting 8 characters one after another, that was quite time consuming without moving the plot forward. While we needed an intro to those characters eventually (I assume they reappear in subsequent books), it was all tell and no show, literally, even for Evan! We didn't need to know about them in this book since they played no real role.

I would have liked a bit more at the end, the newly introduced characters didn't get much of a chance to make an impact on us. On the positive side, the writing style was pleasant to read and flowed well, and there are a lot of little hidden twists and surprises all along to keep you on your toes.

In the end, I got hooked enough to want to know what happens next.