He faces daily abuses varying from physical to sexual and everything in between, and he bears countless scars, inside and out, but he is also a man with a mission to return to his people, and he refuses to let anything break him.

On the other hand, we have Azarion, whose “privileges” as the top gladiator in the Empire don’t negate the fact that he is a man who’s been sold into a vicious slavery trade. She’s tough as nails, but with a heart of pure gold, and she treasures her responsibility and family above all else. So, each year, she burns again and again, as she slowly becomes this jaded, cynical woman whose sole purpose is to keep struggling through life until the next spring’s sacrifices.ĭespite (or as a result of) being a victim of so many varying abuses-whether it’s the village folk’s entrapment of her family, or the rape and burning she undergoes each spring, or the fact that she is forced to watch innocent women die at her side year after year-Gilene is such a strong, no-nonsense heroine, and I freaking love it. We quickly learn that her sacrifice comes not just from selflessness, but from the village’s shackles on her family if Gilene refuses, her loved ones will pay the cost. For Gilene, spring was the season neither of rain nor of planting, but of suffering.īorn a fire-witch, one of Gilene’s various magical abilities is that she is unharmed by fire-which means that, in her village of Beroe, she is forced to attend each year’s sacrificial slaughter in the Empire, where a woman from each village is burned alive for entertainment and holy blessings. I’d been in that mood for a few weeks when I decided to pick up Phoenix Unbound, and let me tell you, damn, does this book hit the spot. To protect her family and village, she will risk everything to return to the Empire–and burn once more.Įvery now and then, I get in these reading moods-more and more often lately-where I find myself craving a really good, swoon-worthy fantasy romance. And unknown to Gilene, he also wants to reclaim the birthright of his clan.

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.Īzarion, 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. For the last five years, one small village’s tithe has been the same woman. 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.

Phoenix Unbound by Grace Draven