Rosaria Munda’s Fireborne will fill the Game of Thrones-shaped hole in your life

Rosaria Munda’s Fireborne is a dystopian tale of what happens when the dust from a revolution settles, only set in world full of dragons, political intrigue and impending war.

Let’s be honest: Now that Game of Thrones is over, we’re all looking for something to fill the gaping hole in our life that the series left behind. Enter Fireborne, the start of a new trilogy from debut author Rosaria Munda, which has all the political intrigue, betrayal, familial secrets and dragons you could possibly want.

Fireborne follows the story of two orphans named Annie and Lee, who both survived a bloody revolution that overthrew the dragonlords of Calliopolis. Lee, the son of one of the murdered dragonlords, watched his family be murdered in front of him, and has hidden his true lineage ever since. Annie, a former serf, also watched her family die – burned to death at the hands of Lee’s dragonlord father.

The two wind up in the same orphanage as children, and ultimately grow up to be friends. (Though Lee has never come clean about his aristocratic heritage.) So, you know, history is complicated.

Nearly a decade has passed since the revolution that brought down the dragonlords and killed the creatures they flew, and a new class-based society of merit has risen up in their place. A new generation of dragons and dragon riders is now coming of age, chosen by skill rather than bloodlines. But still, a competition must take place to determine who will lead the country’s new fleet. Both Annie and Lee are frontrunners for Firstrider, a high-ranking leadership position, and one which Lee would have likely been automatically born to in his first/old life.

Fireborne’s switching POVs do a great job of letting us get in the heads of both Lee and Annie, realistically showing their internal desires and conflicts as they both care for and compete with one another. Neither of them is perfect, but rather deeply relatable, as Annie wrestles with her self-confidence and feelings of self-worth in light of her poor upbringing, and Lee struggles with the fact that he must keep his past secret from everyone he cares about. (The sequences in which Lee must publicly celebrate the anniversary of the event that killed his entire family as a national holiday are especially difficult to stomach.)

The world building of Fireborne is through and detailed, and Anne and Lee’s relatively privileged positions allow both of them – and us, as readers – to see the flaws inherent in Calliopolis’ supposedly enlightened system of class and merit. Drawing inspiration from Plato’s Republic, the government’s system forces every citizen to take something called the “metals test”, which supposedly determines one’s fitness for work and society. Lower-class “Irons” are primarily unskilled laborers and restricted to manual labor, while upper-class “Golds” are philosophers, poets and other posh rich types. Is it so very different at its core from the time when the dragonlords ruled?

For some, perhaps. There’s more consistent work, and regular food. But when things start to go bad, and survivors from the old regime reveal themselves seeking to claim what was once theirs, things change. Suddenly, class-based differences begin determining who really receives full rations, who’s left defenseless, and whose lives are determined to be dispensable to the kingdom’s future. What sort of world are Anne, Lee and their fellow dragonriders really fighting for?

This is one of the key questions at the heart of Fireborne, especially for Lee, who must decide whether to side with the surviving family members he’d thought he lost so long ago, or fight to the death against them – all to uphold a world that destroyed his life as a child? To Munda’s credit, she never makes this choice seem like an easy one, and as Lee struggles to choose a side, we all waffle with him. No one in this story is perfect, and it’s hard to know which sorts of governmental propaganda actually have a ring of truth to them. Which life will he choose?

This is all further complicated by his friendship and occasional flirtation with Annie, his BFF whose background and life experiences couldn’t be more different form his own. Born in poverty, Annie too has survived tragedy, and she has used her history to propel he forward in this new world. For the Calliopolis government, she is an example of the success of their merit-based ranking systems, having come from nothing to become a dragonrider and one of the most successful young leaders they have. Annie, for her part, struggles with a really bad case of imposter syndrome – and is often torn over how she feels about Lee.

Not just in a romantic sense, though one does get the sense in this novel – the first in a trilogy – that Annie doesn’t quite know where her heart lies at present. She’s long-suspected Lee’s true heritage, though she has purposefully never asked him or otherwise confirmed her ideas. Yet, she still struggles with resentment toward the classes – and the remaining members thereof – who kept her and her family oppressed, and she often chafes at the idea that even now, so much of Lee’s success seems to come so easily to them.

As the novel ends, complex and dangerous choices must be made by almost every major character, and Fireborne doesn’t shy away from presenting real, occasionally grisly consequences for their actions. It’s a complex, exciting story and one fantasy fans everywhere will certainly enjoy – especially if you happen to have a Targaryen-shaped hole in your life these days.

Fireborne is now available. Let us know if you give it a try!