Trial By Fire

Reviewed by: William Brown - Falmouth Memorial Library, Falmouth, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: February 6, 2015

Review

Trial By Fire is a very interesting book. Fantasy blended with a touch of science fiction. Our protagonist is a young lady in high school who is beset by crippling allergies that keep her from most aspects of a normal life. That changes completely when she is drawn through magic to an alternate version of the world she knows. She leaves behind the Earth that we know for one ruled by magic, where the study and teaching of science is forbidden on pain of death. Here she finds that she's not crippled by allergies, but instead has latent magical powers that she doesn't understand and faces another version of herself who rules from on high, and treats those who oppose her without mercy and must struggle to come to grips with meeting her own alternate self and find her way in a world she doesn't understand. This book has a fascinating approach to a magical world, depicting it through the eyes of a science literate teenager who takes what she sees and views it in terms the reader can easily understand. Few books blend science and magic with any degree of success, and this does an admirable job with both.

Overall Book Score: good