Early Review – The Fire King (Invisible Order, Book 2) by Paul Crilley (5/5 stars)

I absolutely loved the first book in this series, The Invisible Order, Book One: Rise of the Darklings, and was very excited to read this book.  I got an advanced reading copy of this book through NetGalley.com.  The Fire King is the second book in a planned trilogy. This was a wonderful read and you learn more about the Invisible Order’s past and what will have to be done to save London.  It can be read as a stand alone, but the first book does provide good background for this book and if you skipped you might be a little confused at first.

Emily and crew are thrown back to the year 1666 and are determined to find Christopher Wren in hopes that he can save London.  Unfortunately other dangerous plans are afoot; one of the faeries is determined to overthrow Queen Titania and burn London to the ground.  This evil fae will summon The Fire King to help overthrow the city; only problem is once the Fire King is summoned he can’t be stopped.  Emily must figure out a way to save London and she will need all of the human and fae help she can get.

I loved this book.  It is set in the past and has a dark Victorian feel to it.  I love how historical events, like the Great Fire of London are tied in with the story of the Fire King being set loose on the city.  It is clever and unique to have the fantasy based storyline tied into real historical events.

All the characters are interesting, realistic, and likable.  Emily can be a bit bossy at times, but she tries hard to do her best and tries to remain as confident as she can.  This book was told both from Emily’s point of view and from Will’s (her younger brother) point of view.  It was fun to see Will play a bigger role in this book.  I liked how Emily and Will each took their own path to solving the problems facing London, yet in the end the two points converged and both paths were necessary to resolve the plot.

There are some wonderful new characters introduced into the story.  Puck runs a group of underground rebel humans, of which Katerina is a part of.  Katerina was a wonderful addition to the character line up.  Also we finally get to meet the elusive Merlin in person.

The description in this book is wonderful, it is very easy to picture the surroundings in your mind.  The writing in general is just very well done and this was a wondeful book to read.  The main plotline is resolved nicely.  I found it very hard to put down this book and wanted to read the whole thing straight through.

Overall just an absolutely wonderful read.  There are politics, adventure, magic, action, and rebellion.  The characters are wonderful, the description makes the story really come alive, and I love how the fantasy is entwined with real historical events.  A absolutely wonderful read.  I recommend for all readers middle grade and older who love fantasy, especially historical fantasy.  I can’t wait to see what happens in the third book!

This book goes towards the following reading challenges: