The Fiery Heart

Bookish Confession: I don’t pre-order books. If I want a book I’ll buy it the day it comes out or wait a couple weeks. I’ve only pre-ordered 2 books and one of them is The Fiery Heart. I was excited that the novel would have both Sydney and Adrian’s perspectives. I expected new insight in to their characters, and more action. Instead I got something totally different and was a little disappointed by The Fiery Heart.

 

I was the most about reading this story from Adrian’s perspective. Adrian has been my favorite character in the Vampire Academy/Bloodlines series since Rose met him in Frostbite. Adrian is witty, understanding, moody, artsy. I expected his thoughts to reflect the character I have come to love. Instead Adrian felt like a different person. His thought’s weren’t witty and funny, occasionally some of the things he said were cute and I chuckled but the camaraderie I felt with his character when the books were from Sydney’s perspective was missing. It was almost like Adrian had to think of an Adrian response to a situation and then say the words rather then having them flow naturally. It’s a hard thing to explain but I just expected something more from Adrian then what I got.

 

I also thought this installment lacked the action of the previous novels. There was a lot of planning, talking, kissing, avoiding Sydney’s sister, and more planning. The entire plot led up to the last scene which, because of painful amounts of foreshadowing, could be seen coming a mile away. This novel felt like a set up for the next one. There were also huge sections devoted to information dumps about the plot line from previous books. Don’t get me wrong, I like a little bit of a reminder, but it felt like the first 70 pages were a re-cap of what had already happened. 

 

I did like that there was a lot of kissing in The Fiery Heart. Sydney and Adrian are a couple you really want to root for. They’ve got so much working against them and still they are crazy about one another. I like that because of her relationship with Adrian, Sydney has changed so much throughout this series. It was interesting to have Zoe there as a reminder of just how much Sydney’s Alchemist beliefs have changed. 

 

Overall, I enjoyed The Fiery Heart and will definitely be picking up the sequel, Silver Shadows, especially after that terrible cliff we were left on. I hope that in the next book Adrian feels more natural, and Sydney can stay strong because I have a feeling the next novel will be intense.