I have to admit, when I saw a Christian YA Fantasy where the main character shares my name, I kind of had to read it.

Add a beautiful cover, great worldbuilding and flawed but loveable characters and I’m sold.

I really enjoyed this book and was curious as to what it would lead. I have to say I didn’t always understand the world we see here, nor the magic system or the religion. But a lot of things became clearer as the story progressed. Not everything was explained, which is understandable, since this is the first book in the Empire of Ash and Song series which will include five novels and at least one novella, if I’m rightly informed. So I don’t consider this a flaw of the book but something that I expect to be explored more when Iris’s adventure continues.

Iris is thrown into a completely new situation, realizes she knows next to nothing about the world she lives in and has to rely on the words of others as she begins her journey. She is rather passive, shy and scared and follows the lead of her new friends Tabin and Mila. I didn’t mind her passiveness, since I thought it fitting for a 15 year old girl who just experienced major loss and trauma and has her world turned upside down.

I had quite a few questions about other characters like Tabin, Jacin or the Dal-Ishnadi because different scenes and even Iris’s thoughts, feelings and actions towards them gave me kind of mixed signals, so I still haven’t figured the different characters out and will hopefully learn more about them in the coming novels.

Like other people stated, the different folks or nations reminded me of the elements in The Last Airbender, even though it’s obviously not completely transferable, if not alone because there are four elements in The Last Airbender and 5 bloodlines in To Bind Fire. Somehow there are humanlike creatures that fit none of these five groups - Dragonbloods, Skybloods, Firebloods, Creaturebloods, Earthbloods - and I didn’t fully understand how they fit in this world, created by El.

I did love this world, descriptions of landscapes and surroundings, the mostly slow pacing (even though there were some faster paced scenes, danger and adventure) and how we learned new things alongside the main character. All that allowed me to really dive into the story and experience the new reality together with Iris. I also appreciated the faith elements and biblical themes that were woven into the story and that one basically has to choose between right and wrong, good and evil and that this fallen world no longer lives in Harmony because of the disunity between the people, but let Khaoss infiltrate their world.

“El created us, and we communed freely with Him. He gave each bloodline the power to control a piece of his world and commanded we work together to ensure Harmony.”

Quite uninteresting for every other reader but funny enough for me - not only do I share my first name with the main character but her mother was called Maya, which is my middle name, two yarnbulls are called Bennie and Bonnie, which were the names of my dearly loved bunnies and my younger daughter’s name (which I don’t share online) is the shortened version of an important name in the companion novella Casandra’s Dragon.

But even without these personally intriguing coincidences I really enjoyed To Bind Fire and can’t wait to continue Iris’s, Tabin’s, Besaun’s and Casandra’s story and will hopefully get a few more answers about this fascinating world Carlson created.

* Thank you to the author for letting me read an advanced copy of this book. I leave this review voluntarily and the expressed opinions are my own. ( )