Review: Incendiary

Incendiary 
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review! 

I am Renata Convida.
I have lived a hundred stolen lives.
Now I live my own.

Renata Convida was only a child when she was kidnapped by the King's Justice and brought to the luxurious palace of Andalucia. As a Robari, the rarest and most feared of the magical Moria, Renata's ability to steal memories from royal enemies enabled the King's Wrath, a siege that resulted in the deaths of thousands of her own people.

Now Renata is one of the Whispers, rebel spies working against the crown and helping the remaining Moria escape the kingdom bent on their destruction. The Whispers may have rescued Renata from the palace years ago, but she cannot escape their mistrust and hatred--or the overpowering memories of the hundreds of souls she turned "hollow" during her time in the palace.

When Dez, the commander of her unit, is taken captive by the notorious Sangrado Prince, Renata will do anything to save the boy whose love makes her place among the Whispers bearable. But a disastrous rescue attempt means Renata must return to the palace under cover and complete Dez's top secret mission. Can Renata convince her former captors that she remains loyal, even as she burns for vengeance against the brutal, enigmatic prince? Her life and the fate of the Moria depend on it.

But returning to the palace stirs childhood memories long locked away. As Renata grows more deeply embedded in the politics of the royal court, she uncovers a secret in her past that could change the entire fate of the kingdom--and end the war that has cost her everything. 

Incendiary starts us off with an intriguing opening that provides threads of the world we're embarking into and leaves you with plenty of questions. We're in the middle of a rebellion that's been brewing for a long time and the history to the world and this rebellion is woven into the opening chapters, along with the mythology and lore of the Moria's magic. 

I have to say, Ren was such an interesting MC to me, not only because she has no memory of her past but also because it's kind of refreshing to have an MC that's got this super rare power and first of all, there's consequences to using it. Her power is different to the others in that she gets scars on her hands in exchange for using it and if she takes too many memories she leaves a Hollow behind. Second, she's not viewed as the 'chosen one' which happens in quite a few books from this genre. Instead she's viewed with suspicion, called a traitor and treated quite badly because of it. I was kind of half waiting for her to go down the villain route and I genuinely would not have blamed her one bit if she had.  I just enjoyed her character, she's a badass, she's fighting against other people's image of her and coming to terms with herself and who she is. 

When it comes to the rest of Ren's group, only Dez and Sayida treated her as normal, but it made for an interesting dynamic to have Margo and Esteban be so hostile towards her. I loved the pay off towards the end of the book when Esteban had warmed up to her, though I'd expected more from Margo. I was surprised at her character and a little disappointed. I felt like her reason for disliking Ren so much wasn't particularly strong as she didn't exactly make the effort to befriend Ren either. 

I have to mention Leo as well, I really liked his character and he was quite the source of mystery and debate as I was reading and trying to figure out if he could or couldn't be trusted, or if he was a spy or not. Lady Nuria was also a pleasant surprise, and I liked her immediately. I would have just liked to see more of the two of them, particularly Nuria but I hope for that in the next book! Castian was also quite the surprise. I was torn for most of the book between disliking him but also having a strong inkling that he was going to be the love interest and trying to figure out how that would be possible. I wasn't quite sure what to make of him and my opinion on him kept changing thanks to all the pieces of memory that Ren discovered. Eventually though, I had to admit he was going to be on of my little misunderstood cinnamon rolls. 

The romance aspect is quite interesting to me, because there's very little of it. It's sprinkled in at the beginning and I'm not quite used to having a relationship already established and then of course some things happen and the romance is pretty much non-existent as we focus on the story. What does intrigue me is where it's going to go in the next book. I'm envisioning a love triangle and I'm curious as to how it's going to play out. 

I'm going to be honest, I was living for the world that was being built. It's Inquisition era Spain and I really enjoyed the world building and the magic system. I thought it was nicely crafted with the backstory to the Kingdom and the rebellion and it was very realistic that Memoria had been wiped out and their traditions and beliefs changed and twisted. The Kingdom of Puerto Leones is definitely out to conquer and colonise as much as it can and there's a long road ahead to take them down. There was so much tension and danger in the first few chapters I couldn't help but be drawn in and I was ready for things to get going...except they already were so I was curious what the story was going to do when the rebellion was already in full swing. I also had a very big sense of unease as I read certain scenes with certain characters. I shipped two characters, I thought they were cute but I had such an awful feeling and then the big twist happened and everything I thought this book was going to be was turned on its head. 

There are so many stunning plot twists to this novel. There are ones that you kind of have an inkling about from the way things are going but you're like 'oh no, the author wouldn't do tha-never mind'. Then there are the ones that are subtly crafted and creep up on you, so you start to get a creeping suspicion about something and then you get hit with the realisation as you put the pieces together right before the reveal and you have to take a minute to process everything and order your thoughts. We have all the exact same information as Ren does, and we find out bits and pieces at the same time as she does, it's just a case of which of us can put it together first. 

I have to be honest, I did find things to be a bit slow in places and the twists did seem to be timed to counter that and could be seen to be a bit overdone in that sense, though I did enjoy them. Particularly towards the end, my attention was fully engaged with the book and I found it harder and harder to put it down. Incendiary is quite trope-y in that it uses a lot of tropes we're all familiar with and have seen many times in this particular genre, I do feel like it brings something a little different with Ren and the consequence to her power as well as the way she isn't front and centre leading the rebellion. 

There are intriguing characters, some more fleshed out than others, the world was interesting and I enjoyed the world building even if I felt it could have been a little bit richer in places. For the most part, I had a really good time reading this, particularly as the story picked up pace in the latter half of the book and I'm definitely going to need to get my hands on the sequel to find out what happens next! Not to mention how Ren's power may or may not develop based on something we caught a little glimpse of in this book!