I couldn't get past the first half of the book, it was a bit too disjointed. But I do like that Katie wrote it from the beginning versus in flashback which have become so popular.

DNFed at 14%.
This book is all over the place. The writing is rushed and over the top, the dialogue is ridiculous and it keeps jumping in time with no explanation, all of which makes it quite difficult to read.

What a fascinating book. I was impressed by the storyline and the characters were all well written and complex. Where there are complex storylines combined with intriguing characters the reader experience is magnified tremendously. To have a book that is well written as well as entertaining is a delight. Reading is about escaping your world and entering another one. The word building was phenomenal in this book. Here I forgot about my own life and was immersed in the world created by the author. I would recommend this book.

I really enjoyed this book because of the world building. It wasn't anything too crazy and was easy to keep up with. Those who are new to fantasy should definitely start with this kind of book. That being said this book is filled with action and adventure and is an entertaining read. The characters were light hearted and
I loved reading about them. There are some sex scenes which I wasn't expecting but I don't mind it but am only mentioning it because some people steer clear of books with sex scenes in them.

Fireborn follows three unlikely heroes—Allegria, Deo, and Hallow—as they fight to save their home from destruction. It's a fairly standard fantasy premise.

Unfortunately, the execution was lackluster. First, I was thrown off by the fact that the narration would switch from first to third person, with Allegria getting first person dibs while the others got third. This felt strange to me, given how much the book tries to set up that Deo is the most important one, with an entire prologue chapter dedicated to his birth. None of the characters were particularly compelling, and the romance was a distraction from the main plot. I personally prefer my fantasy to have richer worldbuilding, and this one was a bit too focused on the character relationships (namely, Allegria's love life) for me to get really invested. There were some storytelling conventions that are commonplace in paranormal/urban fantasy romance that didn't really work here in a fantasy setting, like the spunky Allegria and how modern the writing came off as.

I did like the concept of the Fireborn and the Starborn, as the day and night dichotomy is always something that fascinates me in a book, but ultimately the cool ideas were not enough to keep me interested as I read.

I hate to rate an ARC this low, but I just could not get into this book. The pacing was very slow, there was random POV switches, so I never really knew who I was reading. The characters didn't have enough of their own voice to distinguish. Honestly, I was just ready for it to be over.

Thank you to Netgalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Fireborn by Katie Macalister is the first book in the Born Prophecy. The book follows three characters Allegria, Hallow, and Deo. I really like Macalister books but this one fell short. There were weird time jumps with no warning and it was just a confusing book to follow. Non of the characters were likable and I just cannot recommend this book. I did enjoy book 2 a bit more and will continue to book 3. This book is two stars for me just because I expect so much more from Macalister. If I had not enjoyed book 2 I would have to give this book 1 star.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for a free copy. This is an honest review.

I did not care for this book at all. It didn't start out well and I hoped that the further I went the better it would get but alas that was not so.

I wanted to like this but I just didn't connect to any of the characters. The first chapter was interesting but then there is a time skip. Then there was more time skips. It felt like a lot of the action was happening off screen.

Fireborn is the first novel in a new series by Katie MacAlister, called the Born Prophecy. Obviously, with a title such as that, you just know that this is going to be an epic series. It’s a fantasy series, though a lighthearted one that is full to the brim of action, adventure, and some fighting.
Two ancient races are setting up to do battle – it’s the sort of fight that will ruin or alter the world as we know it. And three young characters are stuck in the middle of it all. Allegria, Hallow, and Deo.
Allegria was raised to devote herself to her goddess. But all she’s ever really wanted in life was a chance for adventure. And to really get to use her powers for something good, rather than being constantly forced to hide it.
Hallow was an apprentice, before he lost his master. Now he’s been pulled into this mess alongside everybody else, all thanks to what his master once knew. But he’s a born and bred leader, even if he doesn’t know it.
Deo holds the weight of a prophecy on his shoulders. He’s also the son of two monarchs, which surely just adds to the weight he’s been forced to bear. All things considered, he’s bearing the weight well. But he isn’t exactly following the path expected of him either.

“We will do what we always do. We will prepare. We will defend what is ours. And we will surive.”

Fireborn was not quite the novel I was hoping it would be, if I’m being entirely honest. I had high expectations, because I’ve enjoyed Katie MacAlister’s work in the past. Katie MacAlister has always been known for being able to balance the humor and adventurous elements of her novels. And thus this series immediately became one that I wanted to check out.
There were elements about Fireborn that I enjoyed. Allegra’s character bounced back and forth between intense and humorous, thanks to the combination of her personality and her situation. Hallow was a fascinating character, one I would have happily read more about. I didn’t like Deo all that much, but I’m not entirely sure that I was supposed to, so that’s okay.
One complaint I do have about the three perspectives is that none of the three felt all that distinct. I honestly do enjoy a novel full of multiple POV’s, but this one could have used some work. These three characters are all quite different, and as such it should have been obvious who was thinking at any given moment. But it wasn’t, not all the time, at least.
But ultimately, I feel like this novel went off of the train tracks at some point. It started out strong, but I found myself losing interest around the thirty percent mark. I did end up finishing the book, and I’m glad I did, as there were later parts that were highly entertaining.
I know that I didn’t end up loving Fireborn as much as I was hoping, which is disappointing. I still have hope for the series though, since I’ve enjoyed MacAlister’s work so much in the past. So I think I’m going to go ahead and try the next novel in the series (Starborn), it seems only fair.

Ok this book was a huge disappointment for me. I was really hoping to like this story as I'm a huge fan of fantasy/paranormal romance and based on the blurb and hearing good things about the authors writing I really thought it would hit the mark for me. Unfortunately it did not.

I did feel like it had lots of potential but there were several elements that I found distracting and I would just get lost throughout causing me to just put it aside.

The book is told through three characters POV Deo, Allegria & Hallow and two are told through third person where one is told through first person, I found this very confusing and hard to follow. Another issue I had was the jumping timeline, the timeline often jumped without explanation leaving me wondering what happened between those time periods.

Overall I did feel the story could have been great it just felt rushed.

The jumping around in this book will kill you!! That is the first thing you need to know about this one. We have three POVs and for this book one POV is 1st person and the other two are 3rd. That was horrible to find out!! This change made the story feel so choppy to me. The world building felt not complete and the timeline was a mess. I am so hit and miss with adult fantasies these days as it seems that they think you have to jump all over the place to get anything done and you really don't. The plot to this one seemed very think as well. I think that this just may not be the author for me. However, I have talked to a few others who have read her other books and said that they are a lot better. So maybe I will try one of those.

Kate MacAllister introduces Fireborn a born prophecy in which Allegria, a priestess with the sun's powers and Hallow, an arcanist apprentice team up to defend their Fireborn and Starborn people from invaders. Hallow and Allegria have to embrace their powers and leadership to team up with Deo, the prophesied and tormented hero who is to bring in the Fourth Age. However, the invaders run over the defending armies and the three unlikely heroes have to believe in themsevles to find hope for their country's future. Satisfying fantasy with interesting characters.

Fireborn was unique and different. I had a hard time getting into the beginning, personally, but once I got into it, I couldn't put it down. It was a great read.

I went into this novel with high expectations. Unfortunately the story fell flat. There are THREE POVs in this book (or narrators, which ever you prefer). This makes for a confusing narrative. The plot points never quite met each other either. Large holes that were never answered. They may be answered in future books, but the story did not hold my attention enough to warrant exploring the next book.

Katie Macalister has built a whole world where the characters are divided by the sun and the stars. Her characters are 3D living in a 2D world, so real you can hear them speak and feel their joy and fear from the page. She has given them a world built around honor and loyalty that will be called into question as they grow to find themselves on differing sides of an age old battle. This book will keep you enthralled by the story as it weaves through the characters lives from childhood to war ready. I loved this first book of a planned trilogy.

I was provided with an ARC of this title by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Allegria wants to fight against the horde of invaders that threaten her country. But first she has to convince them that she is a worthy soldier - even though she is female. She runs away from the priory that has sheltered and raised her to join the outlier army.

Her childhood friend Deo leads the army - but she does not recognize him. He has been transformed by the Chaos magic he has harnessed. Because of Allegria's own skills as a Light Bringer, Deo allows her to become part of his forces.

Along the way she finds unexpected love, avoids execution, and discovers her purpose.

Overall, this was a solid book. However, I found myself skimming lengthy unnecesssary sections. The world-building, while unique, was not fully fleshed out. The character development arcs were too rushed, as was the love at first sight subplot.

3 stars.

I was really excited to read this book. The premise had a lot of promise and sounded so interested. But, the book itself unfortunately did not live up to that promise. There were a few times I almost put this book down, but I kept going because I wanted to give it a fair chance.

But, I will say that I still think the premise is a great idea. Honestly, that was what made me want to give it another go after I almost stopped reading a quarter of the way through. I kept hoping that my hopes might be rekindled a little, but unfortunately that didn't happen. I still like the idea behind this book, just not how that idea played out.

One of the hardest parts for me to get behind was the characters. I'm a huge fan of strong, interesting, and developed characters. But these people were all pretty annoying and made some seriously weird and questionable choices. I don't mind some unexpected or morally ambiguous actions, but this book seemed to be riddled with them and their behavior didn't sit well with me at all.

Overall, this book was kind of a disappointment. I wanted to love this, or at least have a fun time reading it, but it really fell short of my expectations. Maybe that's just me and this will be the perfect book for you. Who knows? It might just be me who isn't as fond of it.

I had this book in my TBR on Hoopla when I saw it come across my NetGalley feed, and realized that Kensington was doing a re-release this past June. That having renewed my interest, I decided it would be a good time to do an audio/print read along, so I snatched this one up. Unfortunately, life and work travel got in the way that prevented me from getting the book read (and reviewed) prior to that re-release date... which seems to be the story of my life this year. But I'm glad I finally got to enjoy the story and meet a new cast of characters from Katie MacAlister.

Because of the aforementioned travel, I actually ended up listening to most of this story in audio rather than switching back and forth with the print version. I liked the narrator's voice and inflection, though I wish she had been able to differentiate between character voices. It was sometimes hard to tell what character's POV we were hearing, as they all sounded the same, and it wasn't always readily apparent who was starting off the chapter - Deo, Hallow or Allegria.

So this story is set up to have three protagonists, the aforementioned Deo, Hallow and Allegria. Deo is the son of two monarchs, and is prophesied to unite realms and bring peace to warring factions. However, that doesn't quite happen and we follow Deo briefly through his life as he encounters Hallow and Allegria, who will play a larger roles as they come of age and the battles against magical invaders converge in the future. Once Allegria and Hallow come into the picture, Deo takes more of a backseat role and I felt like the story was taken over by these two "secondary" characters (for lack of a better term). But I liked Allegria and Hallow, more so than Deo, and I enjoyed following the battle story from their POV. I probably liked Allegria best of the three, and felt like she added a touch of humor to the story, particularly when it came to her thoughts of Hallow. In addition, a budding romantic relationship provided a nice distraction that helped to advance the plot in between battles.

While I did enjoy this story and the action it offered, it seemed that some important events happened off-page which I felt would have been better included in the story. I wasn't quite sure what the motivations of the chaos-magic-wielding invaders were, so I hope that is explained more in the future installments, particularly when it comes to the role being played by Deo's mother. I liked the murky motivations of Deo's father, and the fact that we couldn't quite figure out if he was an antagonist or actually working toward the best interests of our protagonists. But I particularly liked Allegria and Hallow's brands of magic, and Allegria's potential connections to a sun goddess. I do hope we get to see more of them in the future.

This was a good surprise book for me. The writing was good. Plot kept my interest. I would not call this book memorable, but I would definitely recommend it to those who like paranormal theme.