Review: Chasing Embers

Chasing Embers

Rating: 4/5

Buy or Borrow: Buy 

Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

Behind every myth, there's a spark of truth...

There's nothing special about Ben Garston. He's just a guy with an attitude in a beat-up leather jacket, drowning his sorrows in a downtown bar. Or so he'd have you believe.

What Ben Garston can't let you know is that he was once known as Red Ben. That the world of myth and legend isn't just a fantasy, as we've been led to believe. And he certainly can't let you know the secret of what's hiding just beneath his skin...

But not even Ben knows what kind of hell is about to break loose. A centuries-old rivalry has just resurfaced, and the delicate balance between his world and ours is about to be shattered.

When I spotted this, I was immediately intrigued. Dragon tail on the cover...."warning may contain dragons" sticker on the cover...and that tagline. I love mythology and dragons and all of that jazz, so I immediately marked this as a "need to read" book! 

I haven't read a good urban fantasy in a while, or I hadn't when I read this! There's so much mythology in this book I loved it, I loved seeing what was going to pop up next! I feel like it was very well researched on the mythology front but there where lots of original twists to old favourites like dragons and so on. Chasing Embers is very imaginative and it certainly brought my imagination roaring back to life as I was reading it! I'm a sucker for anything with the whole 'magical world existing alongside ours' thing and I love seeing how different authors bring that in to being. History nerd that I am, I loved the little twist on the Magna Carta too! 

Chasing Embers is funny, and has a great cast of characters. I was rooting for Ben, and I really felt for him and his struggles. I loved he and Rose and they're relationship was very well done. I feel like Rose had a very believable reaction to everything, rather than the standard thing where the love interest usually has a moment or two of hesitation and then is cool with it all. I enjoyed the plot and the settings, the author takes us on quite a journey! It was very vivid, and I had a nice image going in my minds eye. I liked how some of the other mythological creatures where a tad on the creepy side, I mean let's be honest if they really did exist I doubt they'd be all cute and cuddly! 

My one issue with the book was that rather than figuring things out yourself, your explained to a lot. There was a lot of explanation going on, and I felt like it was a bit too much and dragged the pace of the plot down in places making it a bit slow in places. Don't get me wrong there was loads of action that had you on the edge of your seat but there was a bit of an info dumping problem throughout the book that made it hard to read and at those parts I found myself easily distracted by other things. But other than that, this was a really good read!