The Fire King: A Dirk & Steele Novel (Dirk & Steele Series, 9)

I have loved each and every one of the Dirk & Steele books, however this one was new and deliciously exciting. After a while one becomes used to reading about wilting heroines and dashing, charming heroes, or strong heroines that manage to work together with her mate to thwart the bad guy. That's what made this book so wonderful. There's a female who's disfigured and branching herself away from society, and a creature who's woken up centuries after his time with no way of understanding others and is considered something to be killed by others who knew him, a mentality which should have warped him into a twisted individual yet actually made him more...human so to speak. The combination of these two is enough to incite love in any reader, and there's just enough twists to keep one wanting more even after the story is ended. I very highly recommend this story to anyone interested in any sense of otherworldy, paranormal, or just regular romance for that matter.

Marjorie Liu writes one great book.... either as a stand alone or added to the Dirk and Steele series.... I am finding that her books belong in the keeper pile.. Emjoy.. Regards..

[...] Plot: 4 Setting: 5 Writing: 5 Originality: 5 Characters: 5 Passion: 4 Overall: 28/30 = 93% Cover/Title Bonus: 5 Dorchester Pub sent this wonderful book to me to review a few weeks ago. Summary (author's website): Long ago, shape-shifters were plentiful, soaring through the sky as crows, racing across African veldts as cheetahs, raging furious as dragons atop the Himalayas. Like gods, they reigned supreme. But even gods have laws, and those laws, when broken, destroy. Zoufalství. Epätoivo. Asa. Three words in three very different languages, and yet Soria understands. Like all members of Dirk & Steele, she has a gift, and hers is communication. When she is chosen to learn the dead language of a shape-shifter resurrected after thousands of years of icy sleep, she discovers a warrior consumed with fury. Strong as a lion, quick as a serpent--Karr is his name, and in his day he was king. But he is a son of strife, a creature of tragedy. As fire consumed all he loved, so death was to be his atonement. Now, against his will, he has awoken. Zoufalství. Epätoivo. Asa. In English, the word is despair. But Soria knows the words for love. Read an excerpt on her website as well! Plot: Soria, a young woman with a missing arm is forced to return to a day job she's not fond of doing but she'd rather live so she cooperates. She has a talent for being able to speak any language. No matter what. How cool is that!? Karr is a mystical shape shifting creature that is awoken from a tomb he was buried alive in many, many years ago. He is captured and imprisoned until someone able to speak his language is found. Soria is able to speak to Karr and she finds a way to form a bond with the enormous, dangerous creature he houses inside. Together they escape and are on the runs for their lives. Setting: Briefly the setting is in the US but it quickly switches to Russia, in Mongolia I remember. There's a ton of desert walking and flying. A sandstorm scene was pretty intense. Writing: Marjorie knows her stuff! Since the main character was a linguist and I did read that Marjorie too studied languages there was a ton of references to those foreign languages. The entire book flowed very well. There was a large portion of this book dedicated to action scenes. The detail shown to the shifters was awesome. And writing the main character as having only one arm? Amazingly done. Finding out the back story to why Soria lost her arm doesn't happen until a little past half way through the book, which worked well but had me constantly wondering what the hell happened to her arm! It was a major distraction and I wish the reader would have found out about that a bit sooner. Originality: This wasn't my first shape shifter book by a long shot but it was a very awesome one. It was my first book that had a disabled main character but that didn't stop her from being amazingly strong and actually even more so because she had an extra obst

Once dead, Karr awakes to another world. Chained and caged, physically and mentally, he speaks a language no one else remembers. Communication is impossible. Dirk and Steele must investigate and determine whether this enraged beast poses a danger. Soria has a gift with languages that enables her to speak any language. Perhaps she can bridge the gap between the two worlds, a world of time and a world of species. At once lion and also dragon, Karr's memory of the past torments him. Anger enrages him as he awakens from the cave, a dark cave in which his murdered body was sealed in a time forgotten or unknown to current beings. Soria's past haunts her and the scars of violence mark her body. As she encounters the strange beast, danger threatens her at every corner, but is Karr the only danger? She feels strangely protected by his powerful body but can she trust him? Battling those determined to kill him, Soria must thread a careful path, protecting Karr and also protecting herself as she seeks to unlock the secrets of this strange new creature. As she reaches down into the depths of his despair, Soria opens a door within Karr's heart. Alone and lost in this new world, will Soria teach him a new language, the language of love? Marjorie Liu's paranormal romance THE FIRE KING develops a new and different dimension to the Dirk and Steele series. Building upon the legendary themes at the end of THE WILD ROAD, Marjorie Liu takes legend one step further as she brings an ancient creature into the modern world and pairs him with a feisty, intelligent woman with the power of language to bridge the gaps. In a world overflowing with people, new cities, and technology galore, Karr's plaintive spirit strikes an emotional chord. Perhaps the sole remnant left of an entire race now forgotten, Karr is alone in a way modern humanity never experiences. Likewise, Soria's missing arm and violent past separate her from others. Language forms the core of this romance. Beautiful passages describe the power of words and communication. Words gain a sensuality and sex conveys the power of communication to reach to the depths and transform the hero and heroine from within. Majorie Liu brings romance to two wounded and isolated individuals, empowering them to look into and beyond their past. Marjorie Liu's THE FIRE KING is quite different than the previous Dirk and Steele novel, THE WILD ROAD. Do not pick up this book expecting to find a carbon copy of the her previous works. THE FIRE KING is an entirely different book and shows the author's ability to expand the dimensions of the series, not only with a new tale of shapeshifters, but also to reach out to new and exciting developments for paranormal readers who crave something new and mind-expanding. Soria's past role within the agency is not quite fleshed out in this book, although her relationship with Roland definitely leaves a reader wanting more knowledge of the history of this character and her pa

Dirk and Steele employee Soria has a unique gift: the ability to be instantly fluent in any language she hears. When a 7ft tall shapeshifter is found alive in a 3000 year old coffin, Soria is the only one able to communicate with him. The shapeshifter, Karr, is a lion-dragon chimera cast adrift in modern times with 3 sets of people after him for reasons grounded in the distant past. This is a very interesting and well written adventure.