IN SUMMARY: Bogged down by verbose writing and sluggish pacing, WE HUNT THE FLAME's unique and beautiful world does not save the rest of the book going up in flames.

MY THOUGHTS:

I love Assassin's Creed so I was excited to see how it inspired WE HUNT THE FLAME. For the most part, the assassins, the ancient world, the sprinkle of magic, the conflict, was awesome. I mean, there's an Altair, for crying out loud. As a big fan of the video games, I was excited to see it's influence come alive.

That's pretty much where my excitement ends.

When you take away the unique world and well-crafted worldbuilding, you're left with a generic fetch-it quest for a MacGuffin that can restore magic to the land. Okay, that's fine. If you've read a lot of YA, you might squirm at the premise, but I don't particularly mind this trope so long as I enjoy the journey.

Alas, I did not enjoy the journey.

The prose is goes ham with EVERY DETAIL. Heavy on introspection, thought, and metaphors. I was losing the will to live so much I skipped all descriptions straight to the dialogue to stay interested, and this was before the quest even started. By the time I got to 70%, I was skipping entire chapters. It was just too much.

Branching off from that, the overwrought prose is what causes the massive detriment to the pacing. It takes ages for anything to happen. Even after Zafira is given her quest, she spends two days ruminating on her decisions and whether she should go and seesawing back and forth in her thoughts. The actual quest was like dragging lead feet through a desert, and I felt like I could've flown to the moon and back by the time I'd finished.

There so much page time given to the characters yet I didn't feel like I knew them at all. The two POVs constantly wax poetic, moon over and over about the darkness inside them or how everyone is counting on them and yaddiyadda, and it's that over-the-top language that distanced me from relating to them. Even Altair, who is arguably the best character in the entire novel, stayed at arm's length. I didn't care about any of them and I still don't.

This feels sort of harsh to say but unfortunately this book promised so much and delivered so little. I wouldn't say WE HUNT THE FLAME was an example of great concept, shoddy execution, because as I've said the concept is bland and not unique, but I will say this is a perfect example of overhyped and underwhelming, of which I'm definitely going to make a folder.

WILL I READ ON? No.

I quite enjoyed this book. It does have some clichés overall it was a good book to read. Would deffo read more from this author.

I did not finish WE HUNT THE FLAME, but I blame it on a busy schedule and not enough time to immerse myself in Faizal's descriptive, magical world. I hope to give it another shot in the future, but I liked what I read so far!

We Hunt the Flame was a book that I was really excited to jump into, the characters and the concept sounded really intriguing, definitely giving me Mulan vibes. I will say that I thought everything in this book was a little rushed, with the relationships and the world-building. I got to the end of the book and was still really confused by a number of different things. It was almost as though I was still waiting for an explanation as to why everything had happened and how it happened. I think there was a lot of similarities to the Throne of Glass, but this didn’t hold the same appeal as those books did which was a shame. It almost felt like this book was half done, I was expecting a lot more from the world and the characters. It was definitely an enjoyable read, but just one I was expecting more from.

We Hunt the Flame follows the story of ‘The Hunter” which is the main character Zafira a young girl who has to hide the fact that she’s a woman despite feeding her village with game from the Arz. I didn’t connect with her at all, or any of the characters in this book actually. I think this is why I struggled to understand what was going on because all of the characters fell a little flat. I can’t even talk about how disappointed I was in Nasir and his character, his motivations for doing things swapped and changed so often, and there was so much angst, I would have much preferred if he was just an “evil” character rather than what we got which was extremely whiny.

I think the best bit of We Hunt the Flame was the introduction of the magic system and the different parts of the world. Although they weren’t the most developed areas of the story and some of it left me confused, I think there was definite potential and I enjoyed the basic level we got. I just wished there had been more.

The angst in this book. I can’t even begin to talk about how annoyed it made me. Every couple of paragraphs I felt like slapping most of the characters. I thought that the more important parts of the story were sort of overlooked and then you would have whiplash when they tried to bring the story back to where it was supposed to be heading. I would have loved more of a focus on the other parts of the book, such as feminism for one. I was just disappointed with the way the book turned out in general.

I don’t know whether I would recommend We Hunt the Flame, I did enjoy the story but there were a lot of holes and lack of development in some parts and I wanted a lot more from the story line and the characters. It’s a tough one to call.

A Prince of Death and a Hunter must pass through a land enveloped in darkness, a forest so bleak and treacherous that no other can pass through. They will not pass through together but they hunt the same treasure – an ancient book known as the Jawarat; the only artefact that can reverse the cursed forests plaguing the Caliphate of Demenhur. Unbeknownst to Zafira, The Hunter, the princely assassin has been tasked with not only collecting his prize, but murdering her too.

The world building in this novel is by far its greatest success; this is a richly detailed, beautifully imagined world with magic and intrigue at every turn – the forest feels very much alive, and every bit the threat the witches promise it to be. The magic of the world simmering under the Arabian surface was so compelling, albeit quite abstract, and a large part of why I continued reading was to see the eventual unfolding of this magic into the land. The writing was almost lyrical, developing elegantly into an entirely well imagined landscape.

However, the remaining content is largely comprised of talking. Lots and lots of inane talking and deliberate banter which falls quite flat; I’m not even sure how much of it passed through editing without being pulled up for being pointless and dull - it added nothing to the story aside from slowing it down. The pacing also became a real challenge for me. In fact, I put it aside for quite some time before returning to the story because of this. Whilst the descriptive approach really worked for the world building, it was far too heavy for the characters; even minor actions or choices were explained in excessive detail with unnecessary dialogue – it felt amateurish – and, despite the enormity of the detailing, the characters remained superficial and lacking in any obvious character traits to make them memorable.

I saw another reviewer call this book “lukewarm” and I absolutely agree. In fact, it very much stays at lukewarm for the majority of the book, the plot never really developing to another level until very late in the story. Even when the characters are having to put their respective missions slightly to the side in order to avoid darker perils along their path I found myself feeling completely ambivalent to it, with no interest whatsoever in what became of them. The huge hype surrounding this book only set me up for an even greater fall, particularly considering it had been plugged in many YA book boxes for being so fantastic - a disappointing and underwhelming addition to the genre.

ARC provided free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Very disappointed. This was one of my most anticipated books of 2019, I loved everything I read from the blurb and the tidbits of information the author has given via social media. However these do not translate well into the actual novel. The character arcs are not exciting and a lot of the world building is either non-existent or glosser over in hope that no one raises any questions. I’m really sad that it happened like this as I was so excited to get my hands on this book for months.

I loved what was described in the blurb but somehow the book failed to deliver.
I'm a fan of books with an Arabian setting, I appreciated the richness of the details but the plot failed to keep my attention and I struggled.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I had seen this book months ago and had been so eager to read it as it sounded amazing. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t get into it at all. Nothing against the book! The writing is great, the characters well-drawn, the story is rich with imagery. Sadly, it’s a case of it’s me, not you. I found it hard to stay engaged in the story, which is rubbish because I was so into the idea of it, but it wasn’t to be,

3.5 stars

I was SO incredibly excited about this book. A strong female lead in an arab world! We need more of that in our lives!
However unfortunately this book didn't hit the mark for me.
No-one can say that Hafsah Faizal can't write. Her writing is indulgent and beautiful to read.
The storyline fell flat for me. People are right in saying in the middle 50% very little happens. And a personal choice for me but I didn't love the intricacies of the storyline (no spoilers!) I did like the overall journey but simply not enough happened for the length of the book. And the ending...I called it so it wasn't the shock I was hoping for!
I felt a slight connection to our female lead Zafira and enjoyed watching her grow but I didn't feel the love for the characters that an amazing book needs. I thought Altair would be the saving grace at one point but he started to annoy me in the end.

I did enjoy multiple moments including the romance. I am intrigued as to how things may go in the next installment so 3.5 stars from me.

I received this e-book from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

For the first two chapters of this book, I thought I was going to love it. They introduced two very different but equally intriguing point of view characters and had lots of action, and the Arabian-esque fantasy setting felt unusual and was lovingly described.

Sadly, over the course of the next few chapters, my interest gradually started to wane and the book never really captured it again. It was a long time before there was any more real action — and I don’t just mean assassination or chase scenes, but much tangible plot. Plus, what had started off as enjoyable description started to feel a bit overblown. Between those two factors, the pacing felt really off and what should have been a relatively light read turned into a slog. This wasn’t helped by the fact that I was struggling to care much about either main character.

Ultimately, this felt like a very predictable and clichéd YA fantasy. Now, as I’ve said in some previous reviews, I actually don’t mind that too much. Quests are fun. Heroic underdog women are good to root for. Bad boy love interests with tragic pasts are a real weakspot of mine. If the plot is twisty or the tension is high or the romance swoonworthy or it makes me laugh or cry or whatever, I don’t really care about a book not being super fresh and unique. But here, nothing really captured my attention or wowed me.

Clearly, the thing that’s meant to make this book stand out from similar ones is the setting and culture. And as I’ve said above, at first, I was excited to dive into this world and felt like the author did a good job of depicting it. But ultimately, the setting felt a bit like window-dressing. I didn’t feel that the Arabic influence went much deeper than clothing, food, royal titles, and some slightly awkwardly thrown in Arabic words. It’d perhaps have been more interesting if characters followed an Islamic-style religion —like how the characters’ fantasy world Judaism permeated Spinning Silver — or had a really distinctive culture or outlook.

I really get the importance of diversity in fiction, particularly in YA, and I’ve loved some of the recent spate of books that have moved away from western-inspired settings and white main characters. If this book is inspiring to readers of Arabic heritage or introduces a wider audience to that culture, I can only applaud that. For me though, it just fell a bit flat.

In this first book of a duology, magic has been absent from the kingdom of Arawiya for many years and a terrible darkness is spreading, threatening many innocent lives. Zafira is the Hunter, famous for venturing into the cursed forest to feed her people, but she must disguise herself as a man to maintain respect. Nasir is the infamous Prince of Death, killing on the orders of the Sultan, his father. Zafira and Nasir are thrust into a quest across the strange and mysterious island of Sharr to retrieve an item which will restore magic to their world.

This a beautifully-written story inspired by ancient Arabia. I loved the world-building, with the caliphates and their distinct cultures and shared woes. I was captivated by the dangerous mystery of the Arz forest and island of Sharr, where there is a tangible sense of lurking evil.

There’s a great cast of flawed, haunted characters. Zafira and Nasir are brilliant protagonists with amazing chemistry as they find themselves at odds with each other and themselves on a journey that is beyond anything they could have imagined. The characters joining them on their quest are all really interesting and I loved the dynamics among the group, with plenty of humour and high tension.

I found the story a little slow to start, but once the adventure began the pacing was great with a good mix of character exploration amid dramatic fights and perilous events. The novel feels a complete story with an ending that makes me excited for the final part.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It takes many common elements of fantasy and explores them in interesting ways with wonderful writing. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys vividly-created worlds full of danger, magic, and complex characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the opportunity to read and review this title.

I’ve seen lots of positive reviews for this book and I really wanted to love it. The reality was I struggled to get into the story. It jumped perspective a lot without giving enough time to settle into one character before shifting to another.

Some were easier to get to know than others, Nasir was interesting and easy to understand from the start but I felt others needed more devoted time.

The mystery of disappeared magic and the six sisters was intreaging but there was something missing for me that I can’t quite put my finger on.

Wow! What an epic fantasy. I feel as if I’ve been on an amazing journey into a different world. There was such a lot going on in this tale of sorcery, magic, murder and so much more. I loved it.
This is fantasy at its very best.
It also had a touch of Eastern mystery with characters having scimitars and smoky, other worldly auras.
Totally engrossing from the first page to the last.

This was a really great debut novel by Hafsah Faizal.
This had a really good plot, however it did take me a while to get in to it as it is a little confusing initially. I really liked the characters but do feel as though they needed a little more depth.
Great book, will read more from the author.

Also, I'm just so thrilled that after my years of reading, I finally got to read a YA Fantasy set in an Arab setting.

We Hunt the Flame is a debut novel by Hafsah Faizal, the first book in duology Sands of Arawiya. The action takes place in a fantasy world of Arawiya inspired by ancient Arabia. It’s an epic tale of adventure, searching for identity, standing up against injustice and fighting to bring the lost magic back to the troubled world. That said, I was expecting a thrilling and exotic story. Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed.
Zafira is a fearless girl. Every day she put on a man’s clothes and brave the cursed forest to hunt for food to feed the people from her village. She can’t let anyone know of her secret, because the ruling caliph forbids women to take up any ‘unwomanly’ work. She would be discredited and punished, and all her deeds that inspires so many people would be erased. Everything changes when she is offered a chance of fulfilling a quest to bring magic back. Zafira knows that this is an opportunity she was waiting for the whole life. She embarks on a journey knowing that nothing ever will be the same as it was.
Nasir is a Prince of Death, an assassin on Sultan’s leash. His only purpose is to kill everyone who wronged his master. He can’t refuse, knowing the cost will always be too much to bear. But his newest assignment comes as a surprise even to him. He is to follow the famous Hunter on his quest to bring back an ancient, magical artefact. When the fool finds it, he will kill him and bring magic back to the hands of Sultan. He is not expecting much of this journey, but it will change everything forever.
The story itself is nothing new. We have a group of people trying to find a powerful artefact to bring magic back and save the world. There is an ancient evil lurking about, waiting for its chance to spring up to action and slowly consuming all realms. The setting is a bit more exotic than usual. We can learn a lot of Arabic words, foods, and mythical creatures. But besides that, there’s not much to impress.
The characters weren’t very original. Zafira is a brave girl who fights against all the odds. Nasir is a man forced to violence by his own father, but inside he is the kind and gentle person who hates the monster he became. There is also a general travelling with Nasir, friendly and funny giant always ready to crack a joke to release tension. We also have another warrior maiden and a wise elf (Safin in Arabic mythology), both with very tragic and touching backstory. I really try to like them all. But I didn’t. I couldn’t care less if they live or die.
I think the main problem was the book pacing. We have a very long introduction seeing Zafira’s and Nasir’s lives, where not much is happening. And then the action moves to the cursed island when they embark on their quest. And then everything going too fast. It all happened in around ten days, and when all the characters met, they were antagonistic and knew better to trust each other, because everyone has their own agenda. And suddenly after like half an hour, they were all best friends. I know they had to make alliances and were in a very unfriendly environment, but it seemed to easy.
The whole quest which took most of the book I can describe as they walk, walk, walk, then got attacked by lots of mythical creatures, walk some more, another creatures ambush and so on. Between them, there were scenes where Nasir and Zafira tried to pointlessly deny that they fell in love with each other from the first sight (should I mentioned the fact, that Nasir was though to kill the man who proposes to Zafira, her best friend? No, I didn’t think so). I didn’t like the romance at all. There was also a lot of running, barking and hissing at each other and then passionate making up (who could resist deadly assassin, right?). There are also loads of bare-chested man walking around, apparently only to make the main character uncomfortable.
I really try to like this book, but I didn’t. It’s not a bad book, I’m sure there will be loads of people who will love it. It’s just there are so many YA fantasy books coming out every month, and I read many that would recommend instead. But if you feel intrigued by ancient Arabia theme and you are not discouraged by cheesy romance and lots of popular tropes you can try it and see if you like it more then me.

This has me a bit torn. I sit very much in the middle about this book. I was immediately drawn to the writing, it is beautiful and it was the sole reason I kept reading. It really is the corner stone of what otherwise for me was a rather run of the mill fantasy tale.

I have read other reviews that have raved about the Middle Eastern setting but I just didn’t get that feeling. I felt this was lacking in worldbuilding completely. We get very brief descriptions of places but are never given the feeling of their culture and history. It all feels very temporary, just a set that our story is played out of instead of a world of its own. We have no real explanation of the magic system just that there was magic and it went away, I am still unsure why. It is just a little lacklustre for me.

The characters for me were also very one dimensional. The only character I really liked was Altair but thats because I generally love the Sassy talking, privileged princeling trope.

Neither of the two perspectives had any kind of driving force over the narrative. We spent so much time in their respective heads that it actually became somewhat confusing as to what was genuine movement of the plot and what was their imagination. All this time the characters spend pondering and wandering around in their own headspace just slows the whole adventure down to a snails pace. Nothing seems to really happen in the outside world for the majority of this book.

When we do get action it is fantastic! When the twists hit they are great. This is what pushed this closer and closer to a 3 star read as these parts were gripping. There were just so far apart that I got bored.

Overall, I just found this book to be average, which is disappointing as I thought this would be one I would love. I will definitely read more for Hafsah Faizal. Her writing is gorgeous, I just like my fantasy to pack more of a tension filled race than a pleasant meander.

I must admit I struggled to get into this book, that being said, I don't believe I am the intended audience.

It was incredibly detailed and there is great character development. Very reminiscent of Mulan in the beginning, which I just can't get enough of. I think I would have loved it with just Zafira's POV, but all in all, it wasn't what I expected but I can see it creating big waves.

Lengthy fantasy novel set in an Arab-like world - quite good.

The main protagonists, Prince Nasir and Zafira, have a quest to find a book to resotre magic to the world and spend a lot of time dancing around each other, failing to recognise fully their feelings - and it gets a bit tiresome.
Their quest takes up most of the book, bringing in a few other important characters. Some of the language seems perhaps badly translated from Arabic although the author is born and bred in the US. Lots of comparisons and similes pepper the text.
The whole experience is quite good but repetitive regarding their feelings towards each other. It's the beginning of a series but not engaging enough to warrant further reading in my opinion. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I can’t say I was very engaged when I started reading We Hunt the Flame, but by the third act I was hooked! Whilst I though the world building and magic system were a little... wishy-washy, or under-explained at times, I gradually became a lot more invested in the characters, the relationships, the romance, and even the action. I thought the ending was fantastic and left some great threads hanging that made me so excited for book two!

Faizal’s writing style also grew on me, especially as it became more visceral and richer in emotion. Some of the scenes moved a little too quickly, especially the action, and sometimes things would be over before I even knew what’d happened - so I’d have to go back and read the page over a few times. However, Faizal indulged a lot more when it came to character and relationship development scenes, which were generally a lot slower in paced.
I don’t know if I wasn’t paying enough attention in the first act, or if it really was rushed, but I never managed to get a great grasp on the various terms, for places and titles etc.

The enemies-to-lovers romance was top quality though. I became invested in and empathised with both characters, and in their relationship. I found it more difficult to care for some of the secondary characters, but some of them did offer funny or interesting moments.

I liked the premise of this book, but it failed to fully engage me. The cast of characters were interesting, but I feel that they could have been fleshed out more.
I could have done without the romance element. It would be nice to have two strong characters who didn't need to have a romantic connection for a change.
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