A Circle of Firelight

This is one Netgalley read I don't regret requesting.

A beautiful, thought-provoking story about the bonds of family that transcend time and space, life and death.

I need more weird black rabbits in my dreams now …

I think that Curtis Edmonds has promise and will make an excellent writer as time goes on. I really liked the premise of the book, and parts of it were very well written. Edmond's writing style is easy to read and the dialogue drew me in.

My biggest problem with the book is that the tone remained the same throughout the book. Books that I LOVE tend to have a different energy depending on what type of scene is happening, and this book lacked that. During suspense and action scenes the writing seemed very matter of fact.

I enjoyed the transition of the sister's relationship throughout the course of the book.

I absolutely loved this book! I have always been very intrigued by the notion of events that happen within your mind and whether that makes them real or less real, and this is a theme greatly explored in this book. I loved the way that it transitioned back and forth between Ashlyn's experiences while in a coma, and what was going on outside of her body during that time as well. The author did a wonderful job making me care for all the characters, even the minor ones.

I liked that this book had two female main characters (sisters) and their relationship throughout the book. I'd have liked a little more energy at the exciting parts, but all in all, a great read!

The book was well-written, and I enjoyed running into a handful of words that expanded my vocabulary. The story is unique; I can honestly say I've never before read a book like this. It's an intriguing idea, that a coma patient can continue to consciously fight for their lives even while unconscious. This book has an optimistic ending, which I appreciated. It was left a little open, but there was hope.

I had trouble tracking what was happening at a few points, because the story occasionally bounces between reality and the dream world. When it bounced back to reality and switched characters within a chapter, it would take a few sentences before I could place the perspective. This did help establish the "fever dream" vibe, though -- nothing feels real - even reality. We're bouncing between perspectives and worlds, and one doesn't feel any more real than the other.

It was wonderful to see the sisters' relationship evolve throughout the story, and I love the tenacity of our main character.

I received an advance copy of this story in exchange for an honest review. All views expressed are my own.

There is an easy flow to the dream state fantasy Curtis Edmonds has created. The characters are fleshed out nicely, and the shifts between reality and fantasy are not jarring or off-putting. The emotions and the relationship between the sisters is enduring. This is a well-done, easy to read book.

Thank you, NetGalley & publisher for the ebook ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Curtis Edmonds for providing me with an ARC of this book

Before I begin, let me say that just because I have given this book a 3 stars that doesn't mean that I hated it, I liked it but it did not stick with me and it is not a book I will be coming back to, but overall I did enjoy my time reading it.

This was a good book.

Curtis Edmonds writing style is a good one, it is descriptive and it continuous and I liked reading what he wrote, I do have my issues though, and maybe it was because of the way it got formatted on my Kindle but there were a few formatting issues, which was really annoying.

The plot was weird but in a good way.

After the accident Ashlyn is in a coma and she knows what is wrong with her and she is in this weird fantasy dreamscape and the rules are hazy-of course it's a dreamscape-but still it is kinda weird and I have questions. A lot of things were unbelievable.

This is not a spoiler, but her parents were damn calm about the idea of their daughter dying and I know everyone deals with grief differently but still their attitude to the idea was very calm and it was really unbelievable and another thing that hindered my reading was that somethings were happening too fast and there was not much substance in the plot.

Now to talk about what I liked, I loved the talk about psychology and over here the author spoke about how negative emotions and anger are not necessarily bad and that you can use them to your advantage and this book also showed you how to see the good in the bad and the importance of fighting on for something that you believed in, that was a great message to share.

Characters

Ashlyn - she is a strong girl who is a big nerd and I love that and she is a Dresden Fan and that was definitely a highlight. I admired how much she fought for what she believed in and she made people believe in her and she is damn strong mage.

Penny - She was a brat, in the beginning and I hated her but she grew over the series and by the end I liked her enough to not fume when she was in a scene.

There were some other characters too but I will not be talking about them as it might be a spoiler so yeah...sorry about that.

Overall, this book was good and I had enjoyed my time reading it, I would recommend it to anyone who likes to read about dreamscapes and is looking for a cross between a fantasy and contemporary book.

If the author had stuck to a tight storyline this might have been an out of the park homerun. Unfortunately, he is all over the place and while he seems to realize the need to rein in the tangents, they get farther and farther off track. The constant pop-culture references assume that the reader will be familiar and if not, oh well, turn a few pages and try to make sense at that point.

Bottom line – a car wreck, two sisters are the victims. Do they live? Do they share the same dream? Do they come out of the medically induced comas?

I loved the dreamscape where Ashlyn keeps getting knocked on her rear and bounces back to do battle again and again. She is not lucky enough to have dreams about fun things. This is pretty much the beginning, the middle and the end of the book. I enjoyed some of the goofy characters – a large black rabbit with a kind cultured mid-Atlantic accented voice, the guardians, the kindly and caring neurologist, a great set of parents.

Three stars for effort. Thank you NetGalley, Curtis Edmonds and Scary Hippopotamus Books for a copy.

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Netgalley and Scary Hippopotamus Books for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.

Man this book got really intense on both sides of the genre spectrum. We have the real world where sisters Ashlyn and Penny are in comas from a really bad car accident – thank goodness they didn’t die but I mean with everything they had to go through, which option was better? – and then the fantasy world where their coma takes them and basically holds them captive in their own right.

It also sucks that Penny sees this journey as a way to escape from her disability, and while I may technically understand the symptoms of cystic fibrosis – I don’t have it so I can’t understand it on that kind of personal level – but I also understand wanting to escape reality because it sounds that much worse. I just wish that she didn’t have to be held captive by some dark lord type of person in a fantasy world to escape from the daily hardships. All the while both of the girls are still in their coma and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.

I don’t know how I feel about the real world and the fantasy world being tied together like this, but it makes sense that the physical body would start to deteriorate the longer the brain is out of commission like that. I also don’t know if I would have had both worlds in one novel like that, although it does make for a semi-reasonable cause for why the girls wind up in this world. It’s interesting though that both girls end up in the SAME fantasy world while in their comas, so that’s something.

I feel like this book also got a little dense at times with the subject and plot, which probably explained why it took me a while to get through. Nothing wrong with that, but it definitely didn’t make for a light read for me. I was worried about both girls honestly, although I don’t know who I was worried about even more.