Phoenix Unbound by Grace Draven – Review

Published: September 25, 2018

Publisher: Ace Books

Series: Fallen Empire #1

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Pages: 399 (Kindle)

My Rating: 4 Stars

Synopsis:
Every year, each village is required to send a young woman to the Empire’s capital – her fate: to be burned alive for the entertainment of the masses. For the last five years, one small village’s tithe has been the same woman. Gilene’s sacrifice protects all the other young women of her village, and her secret to staying alive lies with the magic only she possesses.

But this year is different.

Azarion, the Empire’s most famous gladiator, has somehow seen through her illusion, and is set on blackmailing Gilene into using her abilities to help him escape his life of slavery. And unknown to Gilene, he also wants to reclaim the birthright of his clan.

To protect her family and village, she will risk everything to return to the Empire and burn once more.

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Grace Draven is one of those authors I’ve been meaning to read for what feels like forever. She has a backlist of lovely looking fantasy romance books that seem like just the books for me and once I finally picked up Phoenix Unbound I realized they are the books for me! 

Phoenix Unbound is a well plotted, engaging fantasy romance that goes heavy on the ‘overthrow the empire’ theme. It begins with Gilene, a young woman who has been repeatedly sent to the Empire’s capital each year to be sacrificed atop the pyre in the Rites of Spring. Gilene harbors secret fire and illusion magic, which helps her to survive and escape the Rites though she suffers at the hands of the gladiators beforehand and comes away with new, awful burn scars afterward. This year is different, because she’s caught the eye of Azarion the most renowned gladiator and he can see through her illusions and demands she come back to free him once she escapes the pyre. His people revere fire witches and so he steals her away to his homeland where he plans to take back his position as a clan leader and then lead his people to war against the encroaching Empire. 

This begins as a harrowing tale of deception and escape, but soon turns into a slower paced journey where the two gradually begin to appreciate and learn about one another. I enjoyed how slow this slow burn romance was because it made sense for the characters and what they’ve been through. It wasn’t frustrating, but rather a gentle slide into mutual love and admiration for their respective strengths. The ending was emotional and in my opinion, well executed, leaving me satisfied and not at all disappointed. 

Phoenix Unbound seemed at first like it could have stretched out into multiple books, but the story wraps up in this single installment of the Fallen Empire series. The two subsequent books are also intended as standalone fantasy romances set in the same world and feature characters mentioned in this book. I hope to check out the next book, Dragon Unleashed, in 2024!