4 ⭐ CW: violence, death, blood, death of a parent, immolation, death of a child 

"So we blessed the few." 

The Boy With Fire (AKA The Phoenix King) by Aparna Verma is book one in The Ravence Trilogy. This was a special edition book I got in a book box before it was acquired by Orbit and the title and cover got changed. This was a great fantasy/scifi story that was a retelling of the Indian Ramanaya myth. It also gave me Fire Nation vibes a la ATLA. 

We follow three povs: Elena, princess and heir to Ravence a desert Kingdom; Yassen Knight, a half Ravani half Jantari man defecting from the terrorist organization Arohassin; and Leo, the current king of Ravence who is hell bent on burning out the foretold Phoenix Prophet who will burn his kingdom to the ground. Elena has been training for her role her entire life, but doesn't have the ability to hold fire, necessary for the ruler of Ravence. To strengthen her claim, she is betrothed to the Landless King, Samson, who brings his army the Black Scales to her aid. Yassen struggles with a mistake he made during his last assassination attempt that left him burned and ill, and the sins of his past. He only wants freedom, but his loyalty waivers. Leo is obsessed with finding the prophet, and slips into madness with every sin he commits. 

I really enjoyed this story, and definitely couldn't predict what was going to happen. I didn't predict the twist at the end. We get a lot of fire and desert imagery. I liked Yassen as a character. He was flawed, but you root for him. Elena is a badass woman, and makes for a great FMC. I wanted to learn more about Samson and his army. He seems more than he is. We get a lot of references to mythology at the beginning of each chapter. 

I'm looking forward to book two, I just hope that I haven't missed anything important with this older edition.