From Unseen Fire

Returning to debut book reviews this week . . . I discovered this author, Cass Morris, on the first episode of the Queries, Qualms, & Quirks podcast, and I immediately ordered her book from the library.

The setting, Ancient Rome (with a magic twist), was my first hook. The list of Dramatis Personae brought the clever historical mysteries of Lindsey Davis happily to my mind, but be forewarned: this is a slower, denser read.

It's also the third book in a row that I've read with super-multiple POV (In case you haven't heard of it, I just invented that term). In From Unseen Fire, each character can only see what they could see, and POV doesn't change within scenes, but at least eight characters grant us access to their thoughts.

Still, the main characters are clearly Latona, an unhappily married patrician woman with powers she's been encouraged to use only modestly, and Sempronius, an ambitious senator who deliberately suppresses his own powers due to restrictions on mages serving in higher office. The two begin a very slow-burning flirtation (pun intended, what with all the actual fire in the novel) hampered by realistic social pressure and both characters' own independent streaks. I suspect more romance-inclined readers might be impatient with the three hundred or so pages it takes to get to a kiss.

The politics of Aven (the magical Rome) are familiar enough to today's bickering factions, with their jockeying for power and inflammatory rhetoric. The strength of this for me was that this familiar never became "on the nose," and the magic added a layer of unpredictability. Although Sempronius and one of Latona's sisters had the ability to see into the future, it was always a muddled vision rather than a certain one.

This was a slower read for me, but I plan to get to the sequels because the ending left me needing answers!