Stitch and Bear

A long-running Irish blog with reviews of the best restaurants in Dublin and throughout Ireland. Some wine and cocktails thrown in for good measure!

Monday, September 21, 2009

The Fire King - Marjorie Liu


The Fire King is part of theDirk & Steele romance series from American author Marjorie Liu. This was my first venture into this series, but I have to admit at the start of this review that romantic novels are not my thing. For a littl bit of background, Dirk & Steele are a detective agency who employ 'gifted' or 'supernatural' people.

Soria is a 'universal translator' who is recovering from a horrific incident where she lost one of her arms. She is sent by her former boss and lover to China/Mongolia where an amazing discovery has been made in a recently unearthed tomb. Little do they know that this discovery will reawaken an ancient feud.

The discovery in the tomb turns out to be Karr, a tall, handsome man who is surprisingly alive, despite having been buried in the dark for over 3,000 years. Karr is a chimera, one of the forbidden offspring when two different shapeshifters breed. In Karr's case, he is half-lion and half-dragon, but now he has reawoken in a completely different world, where his kind are very few. He has to battle his basic urges and present a human face.

Ultimately, this is a romantic novel, but somehow it failed to engage me. I found the characters a bit dull, and even all the action and mythology failed to bring much excitement to the proceedings. It's definitely a book for a niche market, but judging by other positive reviews online, it does appear that Liu has her market.
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