#Rosaria Munda

[rosehalls]

fireborne by rosaria munda

they watch us kneel, they see the back of our heads, and they think we've given in. they don't realize you can think from your knees just as well as from your feet.

[lunamond]

In keeping with my recommendation of Cruel Beauty, an actual good YA book, instead of 🔥hotfire garbage🔥, aka Acotar, I thought I'd recommend another favourite of mine.

So, this time, I'm going to give an alternative recommendation to Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. This post is definitely not inspired by the release of Iron Flame.

Instead please try:

Fireborne by Rosaria Munda❤️‍🔥

This recommendation is especially for anyone who fell for the advertising when FW first came out, and it was sold as a YA adjacent military dragon fantasy with a slow burn romance.

So if that sounds interesting to you and you want to read an actually well written story, go check out Fireborne.

Fireborne is a YA fantasy, the 1st book of the Aurelian Cycle (a completed trilogy).

It follows its two main characters in a military academy through their training to become dragon riders.

I personally have pitched this series to irl friends as a genderswapped Anastasia (animated movie) with dragons.

The story takes place right after a big revolution. The people overthrew the dragon riding aristocracy.

Our main characters meet up in an orphanage, where they grow up together and end up joining the military academy to become dragon riders.

A lot of the story revolves around the questions that come up when a newly formed government is put through crisis.

All seen through the eyes of the protagonists, who as teenagers are old enough to know what life was like before the revolution, but young enough to have grown up in the new system.

The story does a great job of dealing with the struggles that come with uprooting old deeply ingrained systems of oppression while trying to build a newer fairer system.

The dragons are an integral part of this theme. Unlike FW, in which magical abilities and creatures are added without regard for how they might impact the world or themes, in Fireborne, the dragons are the embodiment of political and military power.

When the aristocracy ruled their oppressive regime, they were the only ones allowed to own and ride dragons. After their fall, the new regime allowed regular people the opportunity to become riders.

However, the number of dragons is still limited, and the new regime, comprised of former revolutionary leaders, want to keep the new riders under their control.

So, in the end, they still come up with a system that allows for abuse and oppression because access to power remains restricted to a chosen few, the dragon riders and those who control them, the newly established government.

These themes make for really complicated and nuanced conflicts without easy solutions. The sequels make a great job with further expanding on these themes.

The military elements also all make sense in this series, and they employ logical means to train their most valuable military assets, their dragon riders unlike FW.

It also features one of my favourite slow burn romances (at least in YA), the relationship has actually depth and tension, while also providing believable reasons why the characters can't just get together.

I'm actually really salty that Fourth Wing took off practically overnight, while Fireborne has been out for ages and has consistently remained underhyped. But I guess it isn’t spicy... 😒

So, for anyone who picked FW up without realising that it is actually just a very trashy smutty romance mascarading as a high fantasy, I highly recommend reading Fireborne which comes with the added perk of not being written by a known zionist.

[katiifaye]

“Together?”

“Together.”

Lee and Annie walking into the Fête of the Fourth Order from Flamefall, chapter 7. I know it's in the evening but I love sun rays so 💁‍♀️🌟

the Fireborne fanart continues....

Annie sur Aela x Lee sur Pallor

It's also on insta

[moshypants]

My Rough interpretation of the three main dragon breeds from the Aurelian Cycle Trilogy. I might mess with the designs more in sketches later as I reread the series. I feel like I especially struggled to nail down a color I was happy with for the Aurelian in the middle. For a first go at their designs without roughing out thumbnail ideas first I'm pretty happy with them. I gave up a little on coloring towards the end 😅. I need help finding a way to increase my love for the coloring process. I like to sketch and line and then I start to lose interest.

[allaboardthexwing]

its just some of my faves from Fireborne, the first book of the Aurelian Cycle

[luminousdryad]

I feel like The Aurelian Cycle's obscurity in comparison to other dragon-related YA books (*cough* a certain romantasy whose sequel just recently came out *cough*) is partly because it's not heavy on the romance at all, the author almost never describes the more romantic scenes in detail, it's more focused on the nature of the relationships and how the charactere reflect on it

I mean, think about the tropes in Fourth Wing. Enemies to lovers where one's parent killed the other's. War college. Dragonrider military. Politics. The regime hiding secrets. All of these are present in The Aurelian Cycle, albeit with much, much better execution.

Fireborne did start slow, but I feel like that benefited the story. We're introduced to the status quo and established the world–this series is heavy on politics and questioning the government, less so on action and death.

The tropes are present, but not how most mainstream YA normally does them. It's not their lives at stake, it's their freedom, their identity, their values. It understands that death does not necessarily raise the stakes; they could lose more than that. Annie and Lee in technicality are enemies turned friends to lovers, but there's layers to their relationship. Even Power, the bully character, has layers. The Guardian school simultaneously gave and stripped them of freedom, instead of being straightfoward good or evil. It's all complicated, but it all works together to serve the theme of trying. "The point is trying."

I'm upset the series has ended, but I look forward to more of Rosaria Munda's work!

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

vote YES if you have finished the entire book.

vote NO if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[aurelianmusings]

Annie to Lee, Furysong ch. 29 // Andromache to Hector, Iliad b. 6 Delo to Griff, Flamefall ch. 21 // Patroclus to Achilles, Iliad b. 23

[callsign-blue]

Let the reading begin 😈

Edit: returned “Neon Gods” wasnt the vibe for me

[bookcide]

GODSFUCKING DAMMIT POWER

Whyyyyyyyyy

Why did he die?!

I don’t care how much of a conceited ass he was sometimes, I still loved him

Perhaps even a little bit more than lee, but can you blame me? He was there for her every step of the way. When lee was busy snogging cressa’s face off, he was there. When lee was busy lying to her, he was there and just he was there.

But ok fine I did forgive lee for being such a big idiot and I love him to death but power did not deserve what happened to him

And I can’t even talk about it with anyone because no one has read this and if I talk about it, it would be a spoiler and I literally can’t cope up with this.

I just know this is going to live in my head rent free for years 😭😭

[critical-quoter]

It's strange how you can fight your way to a door, even through it, without thinking about what lies on the other side.

Fireborne - Rosaria Munda

[katiifaye]

Bring what fury you have and I will answer it with ours.

~ Annie sur Aela

Fireborne by Rosaria Munda

I added a dragon crest with a wreath to the background bc I think it reps the Revolution well. Also I posted the sketches on my reblog acct oops but I guess I'll leave them there

[shallanspren]

i love you annie. i love you lee. i love you griff. i love you delo. i love you crissa. i love you cor. i love you rock. i love you duck. i love you freyda. power.

[moshypants]

WIP

Fleshing out some designs for the three dragon breeds in Fireborne. Seriously this trilogy is so great and is so very underrepresented in the fanart department. I'm so so rusty drawing dragons but I hope to fix that!

[luminousdryad]

"You came back to me." "And you came back to me."

I bring to you some AnnieLee because if I don't see fanart of them then I'LL make fanart of them

I posted this on my instagram (@/risaru.draws) but thought I'd post it here too