Review: Wildefire by Karsten Knight

Wildefire

Author: Karsten Knight
Series: Wildefire, #1

Summary: Every flame begins with a spark.  Ashline Wilde is having a rough sophomore year. She's struggling to find her place as the only Polynesian girl in school, her boyfriend just cheated on her, and now her runaway sister, Eve, has decided to barge back into her life. When Eve's violent behavior escalates and she does the unthinkable, Ash transfers to a remote private school nestled in California's redwoods, hoping to put the tragedy behind her. But her fresh start at Blackwood Academy doesn't go as planned. Just as Ash is beginning to enjoy the perks of her new school--being captain of the tennis team, a steamy romance with a hot, local park ranger--Ash discovers that a group of gods and goddesses have mysteriously enrolled at Blackwood...and she's one of them. To make matters worse, Eve has resurfaced to haunt Ash, and she's got some strange abilities of her own. With a war between the gods looming over campus, Ash must master the new fire smoldering within before she clashes with her sister one more time... And when warm and cold fronts collide, there's guaranteed to be a storm.

Review

It's hard when your boyfriend is cheating on you with a girl you despise. It's even worse when your sister (who suddenly turns back up in town after having been missing for three months) is completely uncontrollable and does what she wants, and can, to your surprise and horror, control the weather. Ashline Wilde is terrified of her sister Eve. All she wants is for her to think rationally and have respect for their adoptive parents and the people around her. But that proves more difficult with each passing day. When a girl turns up dead, struck by lightning, on the roof of Ashline's house, she decides it's time to get away for a while and enrolls at Blackwood, a school across the country in California.

Eight months later, Ashline finally feels like she fits in. She has new friends, Jackie and Darren, and a hunky new boyfriend, who for some reason she finds more and more despicable as the relationship goes on. But things are not always what they seem. After Ashline, and a few other Blackwood students are drawn to a loading dock by a piercing scream that only they can hear, they find out just how different from the other students they are. They are gods. Reincarnated. And for some unknown reason, they are dying out. Things get more and more complicated when a gorgeous boy named Colt enters Ashline's world, someone tries to kidnap her and the other gods/godesses during a hiking trip, and her sister suddenly shows up at Blackwood. Then there are the dreams she keeps having of a little girl, who looks oddly familiar and who doesn't seem to be very child-like at all. And all Ashline wants is to live a normal life. But what is normal when you're the reincarnation of a volcano goddess?

There are so many ups and downs in this book. There are funny moments and then there are moments of terror. There are heartbreaking moments and moments of betrayel. And Ashline's sister Eve is just... crazy. CRAZY. That's the only way to put it. She's ruthless and does things out of spite. Sometimes killing people just for the fun of it. And then there's Ashline trying to make up to her parents for all of the awful things her sister has put them through, all while trying to figure herself out: who she is, who is after her and her new god/goddess friends, and why this very sexy park ranger has taken an instant liking to her. And all throughout the book there is INSANE sarcasm. And by that I mean A LOT. Which I enjoyed immensely.

Ashline is a strong character, but she's often confused and sometimes misled. She wants so much to believe in the good in her sister, but she's fighting a losing battle. She struggles to discover who she is and how to control her new-found powers and keep her friends safe, only discovering too late that one of them isn't at all who she thought they were. And the ending of the book. Oh my goodness. I think I was more shocked at the discovery than Ashline was. I had to pick my jaw up of the floor. I was really that shocked. I mean, I thought there was something going on, but I didn't realize what it actually was. I was floored.

I have to say that I really enjoyed reading this book. It took me a while to finish it for some reason, but that doesn't mean that I didn't like it. It was a wonderful read and I'm really looking forward to reading more of this fascinating story.

I rate this book: