Lava Red Feather Blue | By Molly Ringle | Book Review
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Title- Lava Red Feather Blue
Author- Molly Ringle
Publisher- Central Avenue Publishing
Genre- Urban Fantasy/ LGBTQ Romance/ Fairytale
Links- Amazon | Book Depository | Goodreads
My Rating- ★★★★✰
Awakening the handsome prince is supposed to end the fairy tale, not begin it.
*Thank you to Netgalley, Molly Ringle, and Central Avenue Publishing for providing me with an e-ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Contents
Book Blurb
My Review
About the Author
Book Blurb
Awakening the handsome prince is supposed to end the fairy tale, not begin it. But the Highvalley witches have rarely done things the way they're supposed to. On the north Pacific island of Eidolonia, hidden from the world by enchantments, Prince Larkin has lain in a magical sleep since 1799 as one side of a truce between humans and fae.
Lava Red Feather Blue Book Review. Instagram jennys.world.of.fiction
That is, until Merrick Highvalley, a modern-day witch, discovers an old box of magic charms and cryptic notes hidden inside a garden statue.
Experimenting with the charms, Merrick finds himself inside the bower where Larkin lies, and accidentally awakens him. Worse still, releasing Larkin from the spell also releases Ula Kana, a faery bent on eradicating humans from the island. With the truce collapsing and hostilities escalating throughout the country, Merrick and Larkin form an unlikely alliance and become even unlikelier heroes as they flee into the perilous fae realm on a quest to stop Ula Kana and restore harmony to their island.
My Review
Lava Red Feather Blue is a feel-good, modern day fairytale filled with quirky magical creatures, all kinds of fae, and set on a magical North-Pacific island. I enjoyed the happy vibes and adventure in this story. I loved the magical island, the mix of cultures, and the whimsical feeling I had through the whole book. It’s set in modern times, but feels very much like a fairytale.
It has good LBGTQ representation and the romance between the main characters is m/m.
Plot
Prince Larkin is accidentally awakened from his 220 year sleep by Merrick, a half-faery, half-human witch. But the spell binding Larkin also kept the evil faery, Ula Kana, at bay. Once Ula Kana is free, she wreaks havoc on the secret island that is home to both humans and faery. Merrick and Larkin form an unusual alliance and travel into the faery lands to restore balance.
The plot reminds me of a Studio Ghibli film, with a style of story that flows like a pleasant, meandering river. Though it took me a little while to get into.
There is still plenty of conflict, but it usually resolved in a positive, feel-good way, as opposed to disaster and all-hope-is-lost type moments. I enjoy this style of storytelling, it’s refreshing to read something where you feel like the characters have hope of completing their quest, rather than just disaster after disaster and depressing moments. It was a fun adventure to go along with.
Characters
Merrick and Larkin were great main characters, and their dynamic and the romance was fun.
Larkin was my favourite. I have to admit, one of my favourite tropes is where someone either time travels, or wakes up from the past and has to navigate modern technology. I love this! It was so fun in this book. Larkin, the prince from the 1700s, trying to work out how to work an iPad and being told not to touch buttons in the car. Hilarious.
I had trouble at times working out which character POV each chapter was being told from. The character voices weren’t very distinct from each other, and I never felt like I was in either of their shoes, but this didn’t make the story any less enjoyable.
The side characters were well rounded and interesting. I particularly liked Merrick’s dad and Sal the hob.
Setting
The setting felt both unique and familiar at the same time. I imagined it looked a lot like Hawaii from the descriptions, and the amount of lava and volcanic activity around. The parts of the faery realm were whimsical and magical feeling, some parts darker and creepy which I could easily picture.
I also enjoyed the mix of cultures that settled this mythical island. The author came up with interesting names for everything by mixing words from different languages. All the characters had heritage from a range of backgrounds including faery, the Pacific Islands, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Celtic and Turkish.
Summary
I’d recommend this to anyone looking for a fun urban fantasy/romance with a bit of adventure.
About the Author- Molly Ringle
Author Molly Ringle Photo by Matt Carey
Molly Ringle was one of the quiet, weird kids in school, and is now one of the quiet, weird writers of the world. She likes thinking up innovative romantic obstacles and mixing them with topics like Greek mythology, ghost stories, fairy tales, or regular-world scandalous gossip. With her intense devotion to humor, she was proud to win the grand prize in the 2010 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest with one (intentionally) terrible sentence.
She's into mild rainy climates, gardens, '80s new wave music, chocolate, tea, and perfume (or really anything that smells good). She has lived in the Pacific Northwest most of her life, aside from grad school in California and one work-abroad season in Edinburgh in the 1990s. (She's also really into the U.K., though has a love/stress relationship with travel.) She currently lives in Seattle with her husband, kids, corgi, guinea pigs, and a lot of moss.
Check out Molly Ringle’s website
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About the reviewer- Jenny sandiford
Hi I’m Jenny. I am passionate about promoting new authors and sharing any amazing books I find with the world. I am a book blogger, bookstagrammer, YA fantasy writer and travel writer.
I’m also a lover of nature, hiking, Harry Potter, cats, fantasy lands and quiet places.
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